Big Blue Eyes and Dark Brown Hair
by cartoon-crazy987
Summary: What happens when Lassiter finds a little girl covered head to toe in blood standing outside the police station? what if this little girl, wont talk, screams when anyone touches her, and refuses to leave Lassiters side? full Summry inside-
1. Chapter 1

**What happens when Lassiter finds a little girl covered head to toe in blood standing outside the police station? what if this little girl, wont talk, screams when anyone touches her, and refuses to leave Lassiters side? And where's Shawn through all of this? In the middle of it all of course, getting into deep trouble. What else would he be doing?**

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**Big Blue Eyes and Dark Brown Hair**

**By; Annita  
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Lassiter stared angrily into the suspects blue eyes. He was using he most intimidating cop stare but, for some reason, it didn't seem to be working. The girl stared back at him, undaunted, even smiling a little bit, her fingers laced together in her lap as she sat straight and tall in the hard wooden chair, completely unfazed by Lassiter's glare. The door to the interrogation room burst open suddenly, but the two people in the room, cop and suspect, were locked in an epic stare down and neither one was willing to look away. Juliet O'Hara rolled her eyes in irritation.

"Carlton, stop glaring at her." the junior detective chastised, setting a cup of chocolate milk down in front of the, 'suspect'. Distracted by the sugary drink in front of her, the five year old brunette broke away from her and Lassiter's staring contest. Lassiter cheered happily on the inside, the outside a cold and unreadable shell of ice. Or so he thought. Earlier that day they had found the little girl now sitting before them, drinking chocolate milk noisily and messily, standing outside the police department. She had been wearing a light pink dress and little white sandals. Her dark brown, nearly black, hair had been covered in sticky blood. The same blood that coated her cute pink and white little dress. Or so Lassiter assumed, it could be two _different_ sources of blood. Though it was unlikely. Lassiter had been the one to find her. When the two had met that morning on the steps of the police station they had locked eyes and had stared each other down outside of the department, much like they had been doing inside. When they met and locked eyes it seemed like everything around the head detective had come to a standstill. The little girl was a little creepy, staring at him, silently and unmoving, covered head to toe in blood. Her cerulean eyes watching him steadily. After the little girl had sized him up she took a few steps towards him and wrapped her blood covered arms around his leg. She had then refused to let go. This was how O'Hara had found the two. The bloody little girl clinging to Lassiter's pants leg as the head detective tried everything to get her to release her vice grip, while trying his hardest not to spill his coffee. It had all gone downhill from there. The little girl refused to leave his side, look anyone else in the eye or associate in any way with anyone other than Carlton. With the help of O'Hara they had dressed her in one of Carlton's long white spare shirts and had set her up in the interrogation room to try and get information from her.

"What, Is your name? Carlton growled gruffly. It wasn't that he was _trying_ to be extra grumpy with the girl, he just wished that the child would abandon her blind faith in him and move on to O'Hara, or even the chief. At least the chief had experience with children. The little girl took a sip of her milk noisily, her eyes never leaving Lassiter's face.

"Could you give us a hint?" Juliet asked sitting down next to Lassiter. Being near the head detective seemed to be the only way to garner the little girl s attention. The little girl shook her head. Her curly black hair bouncing around her face. Lassiter sighed loudly.

"Let's just call her Mary." He supplied propping his head up on his elbow. Letting the, I m-a-badass-cop persona drop he displayed a rare moment of compassion in front of someone he considered a suspect. Even if that suspect was a little girl. He wasn't totally heartless, no matter what he tried to get people to believe. Juliet looked over at the little girl who was smiling and nodding happily, her black curls dancing around her face once again.

"Why Mary?" Juliet wondered aloud still examining the girl. Lassiter Shrugged,

"Mary. As in Bloody Mary." He answered, he gaze drifting back over to the mysterious girl. Juliet gaped at her partner,

"Carlton! That's horrible!" She hissed, her mouth forming a little O in shock. Lassiter shrugged and stood up.

"Whatever. She likes the name. Don't you Mary?" Mary nodded vigorously, her face set in a serious frown. The chocolate milk in her hand spilled and dripped over the table messily.

"See. I'm going to go and change out of these bloody cloths now. Watch the kid." Lassiter instructed heading for the door. There was a quiet commotion as soon as the head detective reached the door. He turned around to see that Mary had tossed her cup of milk on the floor and had inserted her sticky little hand into his own meaty paw. A slight determined pout was set on her face. Carlton glared down at her and tried to shake her hand loose.

"Uh, let go little Mary, I have to go and change now, um, O'Hara!" The head detective barked unsure of himself and this strange little girl. Juliet walked over to Mary; she reached down and wrapped her hands around Mary's armpits. The second Juliet touched Mary, they little girl scram, well, bloody Mary! Lassiter jerked away from the girl as soon as she unleashed her unearthly wail, his hand was unfortunately still intertwined with Mary's so he accomplished very little in trying to get away from her. She jerked toward him, moving with his hand, her screaming increasing in volume. The terrible noise was louder than anything Carlton had ever heard, and it pierced his ear drums and made his temples throb in angry pain. Juliet let go of the girl as if she had been scolded and stepped back worriedly, but the little girl continued the angry noise effortlessly. Carlton tried to yell at O'Hara to DO something, but his voice was drowned out by the little girls repetitive wailing. Closing his eyes tight and doing the only thing he could think of to stop the noise, Carlton lunged at the girl and wrapped her in a tight hug, putting his hand on the back of her head he pushed her face into his shoulder and embraced the screaming little girl. The second he did so, the screaming stopped. Leaving a startled junior detective, a crowd of police officers at the door and an annoying busing sound in Lassiter's ears.

"What's...going on?" someone from the doorway asked looking at the scene baffled. Lassiter glared at the group of officers.

"Get back to work! Nothing is going on here." He snapped angrily, the sound of his gruff voice seeming to sooth the strange little girl further. The crowd dispersed slowly, muttering amongst their self's. Lassiter looked away from them and then up at Juliet. He had no clue what to do next. Juliet nodded encouragingly as if saying, _'you can do it! You stopped her from screaming didn't you?'_ Looking away from Juliet, Lassiter pulled the little girl away from him and held her at arm's length. Staring at her angrily as if trying to decide what to say he finally opened his mouth and spoke.

"Bad. Bad bad! You do not scream like that!" He snapped, flicking the girl's forehead. She blinked at Carlton and then looked down at the ground sadly. Juliet rolled her eyes.

"She s not a dog Carlton. You have to explain why she can t scream like that." Juliet explained. Lassiter made a face at his partner. Explain? As if it wasn't obvious why you should scream like you where being murdered? Shaking his head he fixed his perminate scowl back on the little girl.

"Uhh, you can't scream, because people will think that you're being hurt. Or violently killed or-" Juliet sighed loudly. Stepping up to the girls side she crouched down, being careful not to touch the child.

"You only scream like that when you're in danger. And when you're with Carlton you're never in any danger. So if you don't want to get taken away from him, then you have to stay quiet and do everything he says." she explained. Standing up and looking at Carlton's horrified expression Juliet asked, "What?"

"Why did you tell her that? Now she'll never leave me alone!" The head detective snapped standing up as well.

"Carlton, she's a little girl. We just need her to trust someone so that we can get some answers from her and then send her home to her parents or wherever it is she's supposed to be." Juliet explained noticing that Mary's hand was still clinging to Lassiter's. "Now, go change your cloth's. You look like something from a horror movie." Juliet instructed, walking past her superior.

"Wait! What am I supposed to do with this! She can't go into the men's locker room with me!" Carlton cried desperately.

"She's five Carlton." Juliet tossed over her shoulder, as if that would fix the fact that Mary was a, _she_ and the men's locker room was only meant for _he's_, not _she's_. Sighing in frustration Lassiter dragged the little girl with him threw the station. He got weird looks from all the other cops and few smirks here and there, but he mostly ignored them. Instead he focused on Mary's sticky hand in his, and the way she had to jog to keep up with his long strides. When they finally reached the locker room Lassiter looked down at Mary.

"Okay you wait here and- " Mary shook her head so violently that Lassiter thought she was going to hurt herself. "Well you can't go in there! I have to change!" Lassiter snapped trying to pull his hand away from the little girls. Mary once again shook her head violently. Lassiter glared at the girl, his face turning slightly red. "Well girls can't see the inside of a men's locker room! It s against the rules!" Mary looked up at him, her big blue eyes sparkling. With the hand that wasn't attached to Lassiter's she covered her eyes and smiled happily exposing a gap in-between her two front teeth. Now she couldn't see. Lassiter sighed and pulled open the door. Walking inside he located his locker and pulled it open with a little more force then was completely necessary. Once again he realized he had yet another problem on his hands. Or hand, seeing how Mary still had the other one firmly in her clutches.

"Let go of my hand Mary." Lassiter instructed. Mary removed the hand from her eyes and glared at Lassiter firmly. Her hand squeezing his. Lassiter pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Cover your eyes back up, and let go of my hand. Once I'm done changing you can hold it again." The head detective explained. Mary stared at him for a few seconds. She bit her bottom lip and continued to stare at Lassiter, a wrinkle forming on her brow as if she was seriously contemplating something, and then much to Lassiter's surprised she opened her mouth and spoke,

"You won't hide?" She asked quietly. Surprise flashed across Lassiter's face briefly, but as soon as it had appeared it was gone, instead replaced with the usual nonchalant mask he used when interrogating criminals. This was good; it meant the girl could talk.

"No. I won't hide. Just close your eyes and let go of my hand. I'll talk to you the whole time so you'll know I m right in front of you." It took the girl another few silent seconds of deliberation but she finally slapped the hand back over her eyes and simultaneously let go of Lassiter's hand. Finally free of the little girls sticky grasp the head detective had to fight off the irrational urge to make a break for it. Sighing loudly Lassiter began talking about the first thing that popped into his head, his gun. He explained everything about his most prized possession as he got changed. The little girl sat quietly and nodded every few seconds as if she understood what Lassiter was saying. After the head detective was out of his blood stained work cloths he told Mary to open her eyes. She did and when she saw him all clean she held out her had, which was still coated in chocolate milk and little pieces of dirt.

"No way little Mary. You need to wash your hand first before _I'm_ touching it again. Lassiter informed the little brunette. Mary frowned as if deeply troubled by this new problem. Lassiter sighed,

"Follow me. But no touching!" He snapped heading toward the exit. Mary followed Lassiter dutifully and soon the two found themselves in the men's bathroom staring at a clean whit sink that was a good foot above Mary s head. The little girl looked up at Lassiter, who crossed his arms and pointed his chin at the sink. Mary took a deep breath and walked up to the sink determination in her eyes. She put both arms over the sink and pulled herself up like she was trying to do a chin up, after a few seconds of that, she gave up and let go of the sink, dropping to the ground with a quiet plop. Looking up at Lassiter she pouted sadly, her blue eyes brimming with tears. Lassiter rolled his eyes, but lifted the little girl up none the less. She giggled and turned on the sink, washing her hands with soap she quietly hummed the birthday song to herself. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Lassiter set the girl down, grabbed her hand and pulled her back out into the station. Heading to his desk he sat Mary down, pulled his hand from hers, and plopped down in front of his computer. He was going to find out what had happened to this little girl, no matter what.

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**Adorable right? Ahh, Lassie, we all love to hate you. I finally got that little phrase yesterday. The phrase, hes the person we all love to hate. For some reason it just never made sense. But now. It does. yeah, i ramble. I may write a second chapter, depending on if i get any reviews. then again i may write another chapter simply because i think Lassie and Mary are ADORABLE**


	2. Say what now?

**Chapter two is here, Im really enjoying this, even if no one else is. Because i really LOOOVE love love Mary and Lassie. their my favoritestpeople ever! oh and sorry for the five million year long wait. I was partying it up in idaho. For realz.**

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_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. _

Lassiter cringed in time with each annoying thunk that the little girl made. Mary was swinging her legs slowly, the heels of her bare feet smacking Lassiter's desk and making the soft thunking noise that was so fraying the detectives nerves. For some reason the irritating sound reminded Lassie of Shawn. Looking up, the head detective searched for the pseudo psychic. Normally, even the simple act of thinking about the irritating man resulted in said man sauntering into the station as if he really was- Carlton clamped down on those dangerous thoughts. No way was Shawn psychic. He would never admit it. Not even in his mind.

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

Carlton sighed unhappily; the search for anything on missing little girl was proving fruitless. And the fingerprints that had been taken from the little girl earlier still hadn't been analyzed yet. Leaving Carlton clueless and confused, both words seemed to adequately describe his situation with Mary.

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

Turning back to the computer Carlton decided to use _google _instead of the police files on the computer. He typed in missing girls and was about to click on a link that looked promising when suddenly, the constant thunking noise stopped, drawing Carlton's attention. The head detective looked over at Mary, startled to see the little girl staring at him with her piercing blue eyes.

"What?" Carlton grumbled glaring at the little girl. Mary fixed her face into a sad and forlorn pout, as if she was watching something so sad it was physically painful. Exasperated and confused Carlton raised his voice angrily, as if that would get the girl to talk.

"What do you want?" He glowered lifting his hands above his head in frustration. Mary slid off her seat quietly. She walked over to Lassiter, her feat making quiet plopping noises as she approached the head detective. Standing next to him she placed her tiny hand on his knee, her sad and pathetic face growing, if it was possible, even _more_ sad and forlorn.

"For the last time Mary-" Carlton cut himself off when he noticed that the little girls arm wrapped loosely around her stomach. Something clicked in Carlton's head when he saw this.

"You're hungry?" he asked regarding the little girl with a wary look. Mary shook her head happily, her dark brown curls bouncing around her head. Lassiter sighed in self pity, of all the people in the station why did this little five year old hate everyone but _him_? Pushing the thoughts away Carlton stood up.

"C'mon." he mumbled eager to get back to his computer and back to finding out where the little girl belonged. After a few steps Carlton frowned when he didn't hear the little girl's tiny feet behind him. Turning around he looked at Mary who was still standing in front of his desk.

"What now?" Carlton asked, the exasperation clear in his voice. Much to Lassiter's horror the little girl lifted up her arms and waited patiently, indicating that she wanted to be picked up. Carlton gaped at her.

"You can't be serious…" He mumbled stomping over to the little girl. She smiled happily at him and let out a quiet burst of giggles as Carlton grabbed her by the armpits and lifted her up. Wrapping one arm around the bottom of her legs and the other around her back Carlton turned around and headed for the vending machine down the hall. Mary wrapped her arms around Carlton's neck and laid her head down on his shoulder. She yawned sleepily but kept her eyes open. Reaching the vending machine Carlton looked over at Mary,

"What do you want?" He asked. The little girl pursed her lips in thought. After a few minuets she pointed at some breakfast cookies. Lassiter rolled his eyes and pressed the button for a sandwich instead. When Mary saw the hunk of sandwich falling down the vending machine instead of her cookies she looked over at Lassiter in shock.

"Lassie!" She gasped indignantly. A jolt of electricity shot down Carlton's spin at the little girls words, the head detective stared at her wide eyed, this time he didn't even try to hide the fact that he was completely shocked. A dainty hand on his shoulder caused Lassiter to turn around. Juliet was standing behind him.

"The blood samples are done, they want us-" Noticing her partners look of shock Juliet stopped talking mid sentence.

"What's wrong?" She asked. Carlton shook his head; it _had_ to be a coincidence. "Carlton? What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Juliet exclaimed worriedly.

"Mary just called me Lassie." Carlton explained setting the little girl down so that she could go and retrieve her sandwich from the vending machine. Juliet smiled happily,

"Oh! She finally spoke to you?"

"Who else do you know that calls me that?" Carlton snapped listening as Mary lifted up the vending machines little flap and grabbed her sandwich. Juliet thought for a moment. There wern't a lot of people that would dare call Lassiter, _'Lassie.'_ He was actually a pretty intimidating person to most. The only people that really called him by that name where, occasionally Gus and- realization dawned on Juliet's face.

"Shawn!" She gasped looking down at Mary. The little girl was tearing at the plastic wrapped sandwich in her hand in a desperate and futile attempt to get the food unwrapped. "But why would Mary know Shawn?" she asked Lassiter. As if the head detective would know. Carlton glared at her. Snatching the sandwich out of Marys hands he ripped it open in one violent motion and handed it back to the little girl.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." He growled stalking off towards the exit, Juliet and Mary following close behind.

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**Kay, well im sorry about the obvious lack of action, but I didnt know what to write about! I have it all planned out now though. I used my Disneyprincess dolls to act out the HOLE story. I made Shawn Jasmine and Lassie Mulan. hehe. **


	3. Idiot Psychics and Gushers

**I made it long. Because looking back at my OTHER fanfiction that I wrote, I noticed that the chapters were long. And I decided that long chapters are the only way to go about things. **

**So enjoy my rambling mess of a story. Your constructive critisisum is EXTREAMLY welcome, because I have no clue what im doing.**

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"Carlton she's supposed to be in a booster seat." Juliet explained absentmindedly. Lassiter cringed and glanced at Mary through his rear view mirror. He had tossed her in the back of his Crown Vic and buckled her in without even considering that he was doing something wrong. Who knew children were so needy. Sighing heavily Lassiter ignored his partner and pulled into the psych offices parking lot. Pushing open his door Carlton stepped out of the car and walked to the back door. Another sigh escaped his lips when he saw all of the little greasy hand prints that covered the window behind the driver's seat. Looking up at the sky in frustration Carlton yanked open the door and waited for Mary to unbuckle herself. Mary Stumbled out of the car, still wearing nothing but Carlton's over sized white shirt, and some old sneakers that Juliet had managed to dig out of the lost and found at the police station. Grabbing the little girl's hand, Carlton headed towards the psych office.

"It looks like no ones here." Juliet pointed out, noticing that both the, Echo and the Norton were gone.

"They better be in there. Or I'll shoot them when I find them." Carlton grumbled angrily. Juliet rolled her eyes and pushed open the Psych office door, Shawn never locked it. Even when he left, which was one huge break in waiting to happen. Walking over to Shawn's desk Lassiter looked around the messy office. Random items littered the floor, pencils clung to the ceiling and a bunch of foods and snacks were stashed all over the room. The only thing missing from the room was one Psychic, and his pharmaceutical friend.

"Damn it!" Lassiter yelled letting go of Mary's hand. "Now what are we supposed to do? We need to talk to Spencer and see if he knows _anything _about Mary." Lassiterput his hands on his hips and watched as Mary shuffled over to the lockers on the other side of the room. Pausing for a second she opened the third one on the bottom and pulled out a box of Gushers. Turning around she flashed a smile at Lassiter and held up the box like it was some kind of prize.

"Do you think it's a coincidence that she knew those were there?" Juliet asked, watching as the little girl sat down on the floor and dug into her newly found snack.

"Not a chance." Carlton grumbled kicking a giant fly swatter that was lying on the ground. Suddenly the front door banged open, causing all three people in the room to jump in alarm. Mary jumped up off the floor and called out

"Mama?" Lassiter reached out to grab the little girl as she ran past him, but he was too slow. Mary stopped before she reached the front door and stood under the door frame leading into the other room, her face crest fallen as she watched whoever had just entered. Lassiter walked up behind the little girl to see who had walked just walked in. A mix of anger and relief flashed across his features when he saw that it was only Shawn and Gus.

"Spencer I…" Lassiter trailed off when he noticed that both Shawn and Gus were covered head to toe in dirt. Little scratches ran up and down their arms. There were even a few cuts on the two men's faces. One particularly nasty cut above Shawn's right eye was bleeding profusely. Noticing the detectives Shawn smiled brightly.

"Lassie! Jules!" His eyes widened when he saw Mary clinging to Lassiter's pant leg and staring up at him unhappily. "And our clients daughter? What's going on here?" Shawn asked, the smile dropping off his face.

"That's what we came here to ask _you _Spencer. And why are you covered in dirt?" Lassiter snapped glancing over at a tired looking Guster. Shawn smirked,

"Well, that's because we were out back, wrestling with a sumo wrestler by the name of Jorge Rodriguez." Shawn explained brushing a hand threw his dirty hair. Gus elbowed Shawn in the ribs.

"Sumo wrestlers come from _Japan_." He snapped angrily.

"So?"

"So Jorge is a _Mexican_ name!" Gus grumbled grumpily. Shawn pursed his lips and blew out making a, 'Pfffing' noise.

"Well then why was his name Jorge?" Shawn asked, as if Gus was stupid. Gus rolled his,

"Because you just made that up!"

"Enough! Sit down!" Lassiter Suddenly yelled, pointing to the two easy chairs under the window labeled PSYCH. Shawn and Gus obeyed. Plopping down the two tired men stared up at Lassiter's unhappy face apprehensively. Lassitercouldn't decide which question to ask first, there were so many of them.

"How do you know her?" The head detective finally asked pointing to Mary who was still clinging to his leg and staring at Shawn.

"Well, she's our client's daughter." Shawn explained. Crossing his legs and smiling happily.

"She came in yesterday." Gus added, noticing the angry look on the head detectives face. Shawn nodded and jumped in, the smirk replaced with a serious expression.

"Her name is Mrs. Smith. And no I'm not joking, that was her actual name. Anyway her and that little girl came into the office yesterday. Mrs. Smith said she was being stalked and need our help to find her husband."

"Why? What happened to her husband?" Lassiter asked pulling his hand out of Mary's grasp. Mary just reached over and reinserted her hand into his.

"Mrs. Smith said that they had divorced one another before entering witness protection." Shawn explained irritated by the interruption.

"Who said anything about witness protection?" Juliet asked joining the conversation. Shawn just smiled at her.

_FLASH BACK_

Shawn flipped threw the TV channels. He was so incredibly board that it felt like his brain was melting.

"Guuuus! There's nothing to dooooo!" the pseudo psychic whined stopping on the news channel so that he could watch the pretty weather girl. It was going to be sunny and warm. Like always.

"Then read a book." Gus mumbled typing distractedly at his computer. Before Shawn could retort the front door opened quietly.

"Excuse me?" a small voice called out tentatively. Shawn stood up to face a potentially new client. It was a tall woman who looked to be about in her forties. She had long blond hair that fell in curly waves all the way down to the middle of her back and warm chocolate colored eyes that were full of worry and fear. Something was obviously bothering the women a great deal. Upon further inspection of the new client, Shawn noticed that she was wearing a wrinkled white shirt with a few stains on it. Her blue jeans were splattered with mud, and like her shirt, her pants also had a few light stains on them. Her long pale arm was attached to the arm of a little girl around the age of four or five. The little girl had wavy brown hair and bright blue eyes. Her cloths were also in a similar state of disarray. His evaluation done, Shawn smiled warmly.

"How may I help you?" He asked, walking up to the two new people. Gus stood up as well and walked over to Shawn's side. Shawn looked down at the little girl. She stared at him for a few seconds before sticking out her tong and making an unhappy little grunting noise. Shawn made a face and was tempted to stick his tong back out at _her _in retribution_,_ when the girl's mother suddenly spoke.

"Please you have to help me!" the women gasped looking around the room fervently. Shawn made a face at her, hadn't he _just_ asked how he could help? "I'm being followed!" The women gasped, pushing her daughter further into the office and away from the windows and doors. The little girl ran away from her mother and began to search through the room and all of its various items. Grabbing a giant fly swatter she examined it, lost interest and tossed it on the ground.

"Why do you say that?" Gus asked ignoring the child. The women swallowed hard.

"My name is Mrs. Smith"

"Really?" Shawn asked making a face. The women ignored him.

"A few years ago my husband got in with some bad people. They came after me and my daughter. So I entered witness protection to get away from them." The women took a shuddering breath and looked over at her daughter. The little girl was ripping open a pack of gushers that she had found.

"Where's you husband now?" Shawn asked, getting the women back on topic.

"We spilt up before we entered witness protection. I didn't want to be connected to him in anyway. And he was, violent." Mrs. Smith's eyes suddenly became dangerously wet. Shawn grimaced, hoping she wouldn't cry.

"I think the men who were after my husband may have found me and my daughter! And their going to try and use US to find my husband!" The women cried, grabbing Shawn's sleeve. "But I have no clue where he is! I haven't seen him in almost _four years_!"

"Have you considered calling the police?" Gus asked, his voice lower then usual. Shawn rolled his eyes. That was his flirting voice. The women shook her head violently.

"NO! I can't go to the police! What if the people following me find out, and decide they have to stop me from talking!" Gus Sighed and pointed to the TV.

"You see that person." He asked pointing to Lassiter. The head detective was answering questions from the press. Both the little girl and Mrs. Smith followed Gus's pointing finger.

"That's de-"Shawn cut off his best friend.

"That's Detective Lassie face. Or just Lassie for short. But he has nothing to do with this. Now, please tell me, what was your name _before_ you got it changed to Mrs. Smith?" Mrs. Smith nodded.

"My name was, Kristina Gubbard, My husbands name was Larry Gubbard."

_END FLASHBACK_

"And that's all that happened. She didn't say anything else. She just grabbed her child and ran out the door." Shawn explained looking over a Mary.

"She didn't tell you the kid's name?" Lassiter asked.

"She didn't tell us anything about the girl." Gus put in. Shawn looked over at Gus.

"Um, she told us the kid was her daughter." Shawn corrected. Gus glared at his best friend.

"Okay other then that, she didn't say anything about the girl." Shawn nodded and looked up at Lassiter.

"Why do _you _have her?" He asked.

"Because she won't leave me alone." Lassiter grumbled pulling his had away from Mary's, only to have the little girl persistently grab it again.

"Carlton found her covered in blood outside of the police station. And now she won't leave his side. Word of advice. Don't touch her, she goes nuts." Juliet warned, not wanting another scene like the one at the station. Shawn and Gus exchanged looks. Noticing the silent communication Lassiter asked,

"What?"

"Well it's just that…" Shawn sighed and glanced at the little girl.

"We went to Brad Pits house and-"

"Brad Pitt?" Lassiter asked completely confused.

"He means Mr. Smith." Gus clarified irritably.

"Noooo, Actually I meant Mr. Gubbard." Reaching down, Shawn picked a bag of Doritos up off the floor. Gus glared at his soon to be ex best friend.

"Shawn! This is serious! Stop making jokes." Sighing dramatically Shawn slumped in his seat.

"Okay, _fine_. We went to go see if we could track down Mr. _Gubbard_, stupid name by the way, and when we walked into his completely unlocked and open home we found nothing. The guy wasn't there. Happy?" Shawn grumbled stuffing some Doritos into his mouth.

"You broke into his house?" Lassiter asked peevishly. Shawn scoffed at Lassiter.

"Noo, didn't you just hear me say his door was wide open?" Shawn asked through a mouthful of chips. Lassiter turned his withering glare on Gus.

"There may have been some lock picking involved." Gus admitted, swallowing a nervous lump in his throat.

"But that's not all we found!" Shawn suddenly yelled, jumping up from his seat, sending his bag of Doritos tumbling to the floor. The bag spilled out on the ground in front of Lassie and Mary. Lassiter glared at Shawn.

"We found blood." Shawn admitted his face suddenly serious.

"And a lot of it." Gus added. Juliet's face went pale.

"Carlton!" She gasped gaining her partners attention. "Do you think it's possible that Mrs. Smith-"

"Angelina Jolie." Shawn correct. Juliet ignored him.

"Could have found her husband and went inside with Mary to go and see him?" She asked searching her partners face. Lassiter nodded and continued Juliet's train of thought.

"And when she found her husband, the men who were allegedly following _her_ came in and killed them both!"

"And somehow Mary got away and made it to the police station!" Juliet added.

"Which would explain why she was covered in blood!" Lassiter exclaimed excitedly. Shawn looked over at Gus.

"Who's Mary?" He asked. Gus just shrugged.

"Oh, that's what I named the girl." Lassiter explained looking down at his little leech. "Mary!" Lassiter suddenly exclaimed noticing for the first time that the brunette was eating the chips that had spilled all over the ground. Mary looked up at him questioningly. "Don't EAT those! There dirty! Who knows when this idiot," he pointed at Shawn, "last cleaned his floors!" Lassiter grabed the chip out of the little girl's hand and tossed it on the ground. Mary looked up at Shawn, then back to Lassiter. Smiling brightly she pointed at Shawn and yelled,

"Idiot!" Taken aback Lassiter stared at the little girl and then smiled, almost fondly. Shawn locked eyes with Gus and pointed a finger at the little girl, as if he wanted conformation that this was really happening.

"Carlton..." Juliet warned dangerously. Shawn shook his head and decided that it was time for the attention to return to him.

"I'm sensing that your theory isn't exactly right!" The pseudo Psychic yelled regaining the attention in the room. Mission accomplished.

"And why is that?" Lassiter asked angrily.

"Because, when me and Gus went into the house, in a completely legal fashion, two men showed up." Shawn paused to add dramatic flare. Which irritated Lassiter to no end.

"And then they chased us threw the forest, while yelling: Gubbard, we have you're daughter." Shawn explained ominously. Lassiter glared at the pseudo psychic.

"You were chased by people who claimed to of been holding her hostage?" The head detective asked pointing down at Mary. The little girl was humming to herself, obviously board with all the talking. "And they thought you were Mr. Gubbard?"

"Yeah and we escaped by running threw the forest!" Gus added irritated by the situation. Shawn pointed to a cut on Gus's arm.

"He got cut by a branch."

"You ran into a tree!" Gus snapped pointing to the cut on Shawn's head. Shawn glared at him.

"That thing came out of no where Gus!" Shawn shrugged and abruptly walked off, leaving the people in the room to watch in stunned confusion as he approached a closet in the back of the room. Pulling open the door he walked inside and began to dig threw various piles of junk.

"What's he doing?" Juliet asked.

"Being an idiot." Gus mumbled. He had no clue what his friend was doing. He hardly ever did.

"Idiot!" Mary echoed smiling proudly up at Lassiter. A loud, '_AHA!_' echoed out threw the closet and a few seconds later Shawn walked back into the room, carrying a huge box of small children's clothes. Gus made a face,

"Why the hell do you have that!" he gasped watching as Shawn dropped the box on the ground. Shawn sighed,

"It's a long story, it was Halloween and there was, alcohol, and that man that got pregnant was there along with some carrier pidgins- look! It's not important! Just be happy that I have them." Shawn snapped. Nudging the box towards Mary. The little girl giggled and reached into the box happily.

"Great." Lassiter looked up at Shawn. "Once she's all dressed, you two are going to take us to that house."

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**Bum bum buuum, worst chapter ending eeevvveeerrr! I don't know why I'm writing this story. I clearly have no clue where its going. Im not even writing it really, my dark and twisted muse, Malkia is writing it! That's right. My muse. I have four. Their names are all weird. **

**Review and maybe the next chapter wont suck.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Ehehe…well hello there everyone. So I know I'm an awful terrible fanfic writer. I mean, bad authors write poorly, don't have a plot or their characters are all… well, out of character. But the truly awful authors are the ones that write something that gets your attention and then they don't bother to update. Ever. That's me. A truly awful author. For that I am sorry. I will try to be better, and to show you that I have changed; I give you the next, much longer installment of this horribly named fanfic.**

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Lassiter stared at Mary unhappily.

"This is completely ridiculous. She looks…" The grumpy head detective trailed off at the glare Juliet shot him,

"She looks adorable. Carlton." O'Hara snapped reaching down to adjust Mary's collar and stopping short when she remembered the girl's reaction to human contact that didn't belong to Lassiter. Mary was wearing a pink dress that was too short for her, which would have been a problem, except that under the dress was layers and layers of fluffy frills that made the dress poof out. She was also wearing poofy white shorts that ended right above her knees. Her black hair was tied up in two pigtails with pink ribbons and she was wearing small black slip on shoes. Overall she looked like a whimsical Disney character. Carlton sighed loudly and turned his attention to Shawn and Gus.

"All right you two, take us to that cabin." The head detective ordered, grabbing Mary's hand and dragging her to the front door. The little girl whined unhappily when she dropped the box of gushers she had picked up, but didn't fight as Carlton led her to the car. Reaching his crown Vic Carlton paused and considered the amount of people that he had to fit in there. Juliet walked up beside him and realized the dilemma that was running through his head.

"How are those two going to fit in the back without touching Mary?" she asked looking down at the little girl.

"Maybe she won't mind." Carlton mumbled pulling the girl towards the back door.

"But Carlton, she freaked out when I touched her in the interrogation room." The junior detective mumbled walking towards the passenger side. Carlton yanked open the back door on the driver's side and helped Mary in. Grabbing the seat belt he pulled it across Mary's lap and clicked it into place. Looking up at O'Hara, who was sitting in the passenger seat looking back at Carlton worriedly, he said,

"Well, maybe she just doesn't like you." Juliet scoffed at him and turned around in her seat with an indignant huff. Ignoring her, Carlton slammed the door and turned just as Gus and Shawn were heading towards the car. Pulling open his own door Carlton shot them a dirty look,

"You two, get in on the passenger side and whatever you do, DO NOT touch Mary." Without waiting for a response, the head detective slid in behind the wheel and turned the car on. As they waited Carlton turned to his partner,

"You said the blood found on Mary had been analyzed?" He asked watching as Shawn pulled open the door behind Juliet and slid in as close to Mary as he could get, while not touching her.

"That's right. It was from a, Veronica Hernández, a legal immigrant from México. She has no family and lives alone. So there wasn't any additional information on her." Juliet explained. Carlton nodded and didn't say anything. Instead he watched what was happening in the back seat, worry over Mary distracting him.

"Can't you scoot over a little?" Gus asked pulling the door shut with some difficulty. Shawn just ignored him,

"So what's wrong with the little girl?" the pseudo psychic asked, silently wondering if he should poke her in the shoulder just to see what she would do.

"She doesn't like it when people touch her." Juliet explained as Carlton pulled out of the psych parking lot.

"But, what about Lassie?" Shawn asked, giving in and poking Mary in the shoulder. The little girl turned violently and stared at Shawn with wide angry eyes.

"She only likes him. She seems scared of everyone else." Juliet explained thoughtfully. Shawn nodded silently and poked Mary in the middle of the forehead. Her angry scowl intensified and she made a loud screeching noise with her throat while simotainiously smacking Shawn's hand.

"Spencer!" Lassiter snapped glaring at Shawn through his rear view mirror. "Do. Not. Touch. Her." Shawn smirked at Mary, his hand still hovering in the air above her forehead. The little girl returned his smile with a heated glare that would have made Carlton proud. Ignoring it, Shawn patted Mary on the head once and pulled his hand back smiling broadly. Mary screeched loudly and kicked the back of Lassiters chair,

"Lassie! I'm dying!" She cried kicking the back of the head detectives chair again.

"Dyeing?" Shawn repeated, looking slightly worried. Carlton passed a car driving slowly in front of them.

"Mary, you are not dyeing." He grumbled glaring at Shawn angrily. Juliet turned around in her seat to look at Mary.

"Sweetie." She started, "It's okay if the people in this car pick you up or take you somewhere. We are all good people. You shouldn't scream at us." She explained smiling gently. Mary regarded her with an apprehensive look and then crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you understand?" Juliet asked softly. Mary didn't respond instead she just swung her legs casually and ignored Juliet. Juliet bit the inside of her cheek, as if she was trying to decide something. She cleared her throat once and then asked,

"Mary? You like me right?" the junior detective looked at the little girl hopefully, not forgetting what Carlton had said to her when they had gotten in the car. Mary stopped swinging her legs,

"No." she responded without a moment's hesitation. Shawn snickered at the look on Juliet's face. Even Gus had a hard time repressing a smile. Mary looked over at Shawn when she heard his giggling and pointed a finger at him.

"NO!" She demanded staring at Shawn intensely. Shawn quirked an eyebrow at her.

"What you don't like me either?" He asked. Mary shook her head. Her pig tails bouncing around her face.

"No." She repeated looking at the back of Lassiters chair. Shawn laughed loudly,

"What about Gus? Do you like him?" He asked pulling a strand of Mary's hair. The little girl screeched quietly and scooted as far away from Shawn as she could.

"NO!" She yelled. Bringing her feet up onto the seat she kicked at Shawn's thigh. Lassiter noticed what Mary was doing and remembered all the rules about children riding in cars that Juliet had informed him of. He figured that the way she was sitting had to be against the rules.

"Mary get your feet off the seat." He paused and waited for the little girl to move her feet. "Now, I don't care if you don't like anyone in this car. I don't like them either." He started earning a glare from Juliet. "But Detective O'Hara is right. You cannot scream whenever the people in this car go to pick you up or grab your hand. They are not going to hurt you." He explained coming to a stop at a red light. He looked at her through the rear view mirror expecting her to be nodding at his unflappable logic. Instead Carlton's stomach filled with ice when he saw Mary sniffle once, then twice. Her eyes began to fill with tears and the saddest, most forlorn look of soul crushing despair graced the little girls face. She hiccuped and it was like the calm before the storm, even Shawn seemed to sense what was about to happen, both him and Gus scooted away from Mary, watching her like she was a ticking time bomb. Juliet who was still facing Mary leaned away from her as the little girl took a deep breath,

And began to sob.

She tilted her head back and cried in a way that only a four year old can. Huge tears slid down her face in waves. Carlton cringed, the noise of the crying girl akin to that of a wailing siren. Or nails on a chalk board.

"Hey! HEY!" Shawn yelled, attempting to be heard over the little girls crying. "It's okay! None of us will touch you! Really! We won't!" Mary didn't look at him and she didn't stop crying. If anything the sound of Shawn's voice aggravated her and made her cry even louder.

"Don't cry! It's okay!" Juliet added trying to sooth the little girl. Mary ignored her. Carlton grit his teeth and tried to help.

"Stop crying Mary! You're giving me a headache!" He snapped. Surprisingly Mary didn't listen to him either. She kept on crying, though the noise level did drop slightly. Ten minutes after everyone had given up on trying to sooth her; Mary hiccuped and stopped throwing her tantrum. Genuine crying took hold as big huge tears rolled down the toddler's sad face. Carlton frowned, he didn't know a lot about children but he knew enough about Mary to know that she wasn't just throwing a fit about something stupid anymore. She was actually upset about something and unfortunately, Carlton didn't know what to do about it. Unable to help, the detective decided to just keep driving forward in silence. Half an hour after that, Mary finally fell asleep her head lolling to the side. Even after she had fallen asleep the passengers in the car remained quiet. None of them dared to utter a sound for fear of waking the little girl up. Finally the inevitable came and Shawn was forced to clear his throat and point Carlton in the direction of the cabin he and Gus had run from earlier that morning.

"Now take a right and go up this hill." Shawn mumbled as quietly as possible, glancing sideways at Mary. The girl shifted in her seat, but otherwise didn't wake up. Juliet let out a quiet sigh.

"How did she get down to the police station from here?" She asked no one in particular. "It's taken us almost an hour to drive all the way up here." Carlton pulled to a stop in front of a huge black iron gate. Huge stone walls attached to the metal gate encircled where Carlton assumed the Cabin was, as if it was some sort of fortress. Only, the gate he had stopped in front of was hanging wide open and swaying slightly. Carlton drove inside and was surprised by how unremarkable the cabin really was. It was a two story wooden cabin with a huge patio encircling the entire lower half of the house. There was a driveway leading through a huge front yard with a swing set and an empty dog house. Disconnected from the house was a garage, the door to which was also wide open. Carlton parked right outside the garage and got out of the car. The rest of the gang followed suit and soon all four of them were standing outside the house.

"Was the front door really open when you got here?" Lassiter asked noticing how the heavy wooden door to the front of the house was open. Just like every other door they had encountered so far.

"No, but that gate and the garage were." Shawn explained.

"What about a dog? Was there a dog anywhere?"

"Not that we ever saw." Gus added glancing over at the empty dog house near the swing set in the yard. Carlton nodded once and then started to head forward. Only to stop when he heard a soft thunking noise from behind him. He turned to look and saw Mary sitting on her knees, her hands pressed up against the glass of Carlton's car as she stared sadly at him through the window. Her face was still red from crying. Carlton felt a pang of something that was almost sympathy deep inside him. He crushed the feeling and replaced it with irritation. Opening the back door he scooped Mary up and carried her to the front of the house where everyone was already waiting for him.

"She woke up." He mumbled stepping into the cabin. Looking around Carlton noticed that the hallway was decorated with pictures of and photos of Mary at various ages. There were also random paintings of landscapes decorating the walls and giving the cabin a lived in, sort of cozy feeling. A small table sat by the front door. On the table lay; a telephone and more pictures of Mary. Looking down Carlton saw a container with two or three umbrellas sitting next to the little end table. The floors leading into the living room were wooden and, just as Shawn had said, there was blood everywhere. There was an extremely large puddle in the middle of the hallway, as if whoever was killed there had been heading for the phone. There was also blood splatter covering the walls and floors around the main pool. Carlton examined the blood carefully, whatever had happened here it had been violent.

"Check this out." Shawn mumbled running a hand over a wall. Carlton looked up at him and noticed the bullet holes littering the walls around them. Before he could comment on them, Mary sniffled dragging Carlton out of his thoughts. He noticed how shaken up the little four year old looked and was afraid that she was going to start crying again. Attempting to comfort her before she could start wailing, he lightly grabbed her head and pressed it against his shoulder so she couldn't see the blood anymore. Mary wrapped her arms around Carlton's neck tightly, but otherwise remained quiet.

"Is she okay?" Juliet asked pulling out her gun and walking forward to make sure the rest of the house was clear.

"Does she look okay?" Carlton snapped feeling that strange sympathetic feeling whell up inside him again.

"Maybe you should go put her in the living room or something." Shawn suggested gesturing towards one of the blood free couches. Carlton nodded at the idea and, stepping carefully so as not to disturbed the crime scene, made his way over to the nearest couch. The living room was nice. There were two large couches sitting in front of a huge plasma screen TV. Under the TV was a well-used fire place. A book shelf covered in business and children's books was placed near the entrance to the kitchen on the opposite side of the room. Most impressive was the entire left wall, which was made entirely of glass windows. Besides the furniture there were pictures and shelves and various other knick knacks adorning the walls. Overall the room had the same lived in cozy feeling that Carlton had felt in the hallway. Prying Mary off of his neck, with much protesting on her part, he set the little girl down on the edge of the nearest couch, pulled out his cell phone and dialed the chief's number.

"I'm calling this in now!" he declared loudly hoping Juliet would hear him. His partner responded with a muffled, 'okay' from somewhere in the house and Carlton waited for the chief to answer her phone. After reporting the murder Carlton looked down at Mary. She was rubbing her eyes tiredly and still sniffling from earlier. Sighing Carlton sat down on the opposite side of the couch.

"Why did you start crying earlier in the car?" He asked. Mary stopped rubbing her eyes and pouted at Carlton. Without talking she stood up, teetering dangerously on the couch cushions, and walked over to Carlton her arms out stretched for balance. Finally reaching him Mary plopped down on his lap, yawning tiredly.

"Is Nana gunna be kay?" She finally asked looking up at Carlton with sleepy blue eyes. Carlton frowned at Mary.

"Who?" He asked making a face. Mary pouted at him in response and then pointed at the hallway.

"Nana!" She asked again as If Carlton was stupid.

"Was Nana hurt over there?" Carlton asked adjusting Mary so that she was looking at his face. Mary nodded her head.

"How do you know her?" He asked. Mary just stared at him blankly.

"Why was she here? Is this where the blood on your clothing came from? Why were _you_ here? How do you know Nana?" He asked. Mary continued to stare at him and before he could demand answers, Shawn sauntered into the room and plopped down on the side of the couch that Mary had been occupying earlier.

"Dude." He started putting his arms on the back of the couch and lifting his feet up on the coffee table in front of them. "Are you interrogating her?" He leaned his head back and looked over at Carlton an eyebrow raised curiously. "And who's Nana?" Carlton scowled at him, but before he could say anything, Mary wiggled out of his grasp and jumped to the ground.

"What are you doing?" Lassiter asked, watching as she made her way over to Shawn. Mary walked up to Shawn's legs and pushed them off the glass table. Waggling a finger at him she exclaimed a loud,

"NO!" Before walking back over to lassie and crawling onto his lap. Shawn frowned at her and it looked like he was about to say something, when suddenly he stopped and a look of confusion filled his face. Lassie watched as the pseudo psychics face lost all traces of confusion and then scrunched up as if he was deep in thought.

"Now what are _you _doing?" Lassiter asked staring at Shawn irritably. Shawn ignored him and brought his hand up to his forehead in his classic psychic pose. Only instead of flopping around Lassiter realized that Shawn was actually thinking about something. The head detective frowned as he witnessed this calm, almost professional side of Spencer. Lassiter could see the concentration and the intelligence in Spencer's eyes as the pseudo psychic pieced something Lassiter could only guess at together. It was unnerving to watch the normal idiotic mask slip away; replaced with a side of Shawn that Lassiter knew he could never compete with. Watching Shawn get serious and solve a complex mystery with such ease made Lassiter feel slightly queasy, and angry. If the idiot could accomplish so much when he was serious one percent of the time, then what kinds of things could he accomplish when he was serious all of the time? Lassiter was jostled from his thoughts when, finally, Shawn's face lit up and his head snapped sideways to look at the lightly frowning detective.

"I think I know what happened here!" He exclaimed jumping to his feet, just as a loud shattering crash echoed through the house. Clutching Mary to his chest Carlton jumped up as well.

"What the hell was…" He paused when he saw that the glass wall behind Shawn had shattered. "Jesus…" he cursed dragging his eyes away from the window to look at Spencer. Shawn was staring straight ahead, a strange look frozen on his face.

"Spencer?" Lassiter asked, eying the pseudo psychic wearily.

"Ow…" Shawn choked out. Lassiter raised an eyebrow and watched Shawn lift his hand up and reach for something behind him. The pseudo psychic brought his hand out in front of him and stared dumbly at it. His eyes flicked away from his hand and landed on Carlton's face. The Detective and the young girl in his arms stared, just as dumbfounded as Shawn. Shawn took a shuddering breath and Carlton watched as crimson liquid dribbled out of the corner of Shawn's mouth and down his chin. Shawn ignored the blood coming from his mouth and pressed his blood soaked hand against his stomach. He looked up at Carlton in shock, as if he couldn't believe what had just happened.

As if he couldn't believe that he had just been shot in the back.

Carlton's face matched the disbelief etched on Shawn's own features. The detective stumbled forward, still clutching Mary to his chest protectively. Shawn coughed and more blood spilled from his mouth, as he knelt on the ground, his shaky legs unable to hold him any longer. The sight made Carlton realize that Shawn needed help, and he needed it now.

"O'Hara!" He yelled frantically, his voice high and desperate. He didn't care though; he was too focused on the man breathing heavily in front of him. "Holy shit!" He cursed and moved to set Mary down on the couch so that he could better help Shawn. Shawn, still kneeling on the ground reached up and grabbed Lassiter's arm, stopping him.

"Aiming…" He shuddered and coughed blood, "For Mary."

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**No. Cliff hangers are not the mark of a horrible fanfic writer. Just a cruel one. Hahaha! **

**But seriously, about the name of this fic…I am probably going to change the name once I think of an adequate one. **

**And finally, my new year's resolution is to actually finish this fanfic! Yaaay…So, the next chapter will be out next monday. Sorry about the long wait. Maybe if i get enough reviews, then I will speed up the posting speed. haha, is that blackmail?  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**So just to remind everyone, this story is really about Lassie. Though Shawn and everyone else are in it, it's mainly on our head detective and little Mary. Normally in the show we follow Shawn as he figures stuff out and then doesn't tell anyone but Gus. I'm trying to make this fanfic more about what it's like to be on the receiving end of that. This is more about how Shawn seems to figure things out and it's like he did it with absolutely no evidence or investigating. **

**Oh and also, Mary is supposed to be kinda Lassiterish. Like if lassiter was a child, he would be Mary…If Mary was a male, that is. I made Mary a girl so that she would be cuter I guess. So, Mary will be awkward around other people, unfriendly and often grumpy! And yes, a little creepy. I'll admit it! Sometimes I think Carlton does creepy stuff! But I still love him. 3**

**Enough of my talk!**

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Shawn spit blood from his mouth and collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"Spencer! What do you mean?" Lassiter turned Mary away from the window and stared at Shawn, too afraid to put her down and tend to his wounded co-worker. Cold dread and guilt filled his chest as he contemplated leaving the man and hiding the girl in his arms somewhere safe.

"Oh my god!"

"Shawn!" Suddenly there were two panicking voices behind Lassiter and before the detective had a chance to try and ask Shawn more questions or even make any kind of move at all there was another loud bang as a second shot was fired through more glass windows. Mary squeaked when the bullet imbedded itself in the couch next to Lassiter, forcing the head detective to stumble backwards. His grip on Mary tightened as the little girl gave a frightened shriek and wrapped her arms around Lassiter's neck.

"Sorry about this Little Mary…" He mumbled looking for his partner. Making eye contact with O'Hara, Lassiter rushed over to her and pried Mary from his neck, ignoring the toddlers terrified screams of protest. More shots echoed through the house, all of them seeming to strike around Mary's immediate vicinity.

"Hide her!" Lassiter yelled running over to Gus who had taken shelter behind a desk in the back of the room.

"Guster!" Lassiter flinched when another round of bullets tore through the house shattering various items. Gus looked up at Lassiter, completely terrified, "Can you get to Shawn and-"The bullets suddenly stopped, leaving the entire room silent, not even Mary was making noise. The only sounds that could be heard were Shawn's ragged breathing, and Carlton's own heart pounding wildly in his chest. The head detective gulped anxiously.

"Get Spencer to cover. I'm going out there." Gus nodded his head obediently and rushed over to Shawn's side, he kept low to the ground just in case the only reason for the break in shooting was so that the shooter could reload. Lassiter watched Gus grab Shawn under the armpits and drag him as quickly as possible to the back of the room and away from the windows. Carlton pulled out his weapon and rushed out of the living room, also keeping low to the ground. He ran towards the front door and around to the side of the house. If the bastard that had done this was still out there in those woods, Carlton would find him.

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Carlton searched the immediate vicinity of the woods for a good twenty minutes. There hadn't been any more shots fired, and the head detective hadn't found anyone lurking in the shadows. Feeling anxious to get back to Mary and make sure the little girl was all right; the Head Detective holstered his gun and rushed back to the house. Carlton entered the living room and stopped abruptly. There was glass everywhere. The windows that had made up the entire left side of the wall were completely shattered and the glass on the ground sparkled in the sunlight. It would have almost been a serene sight, had it not been for the trail of blood that led into the kitchen. Carlton followed the blood trail, broken glass crunching under his feet. Juliet and Gus were crouching low behind a kitchen counter; both huddled over Shawn's pale body.

"Lassie!" Mary cried noticing the head detective first. The rest of the group look up at him and then back down at Shawn, who was still bleeding heavily through the bullet hole in his back, despite the blood soaked towel underneath his body. Striding forward Carlton scooped Mary up into his arms, relived to see her safe and crouched down low, so that he too was huddled over Shawn. There was no exit wound on the man's stomach so Lassiter assumed that the bullet was still inside Shawn's body.

"Have you called the chief?" He asked Juliet, rubbing Mary's back subconsciously. Juliet nodded her head and let out a small sob.

"EMT is on their way. They said it's going to take a little bit longer though, because of where we are in the woods." Juliet explained, her voice shaking horribly. "Did you find the perp?" She asked, her eyes locking onto Carlton's. Carlton shook his head and looked away, not missing the anger burning in his partner's eyes. Shawn suddenly took a loud wheezing breath that drew the attention of everyone in the room_. _Lassiter's heart beat against his chest painfully at the sight. There was so much blood seeping out from the wound on the man's back that his face had turned a deathly shade of gray.

"Damn it!" Carlton yelled loudly, startling everyone in the room. Mary jumped in surprise and then placed her hands on Carlton's face. She turned his head so that he was looking at her. Her blue eyes filled with unshed tears.

"Idiot going to be okay?" She asked, looking over at Shawn sadly. Lassiter ground his teeth and looked at Mary stoically, forcing himself not to look away. He nodded his head sharply and responded,

"Of course he is going to be okay little one. Idiots don't know how to die." Carlton looked down at Juliet, his partner was barely keeping it together, he could see her shoulders shaking slightly.

"What happened…Why would someone do this?" Juliet mumbled to herself staring at Shawn's ashen face. Carlton shook his head,

"They weren't aiming for him." He started, remembering what Shawn had said to him before he had collapsed. Juliet and Gus both looked up at him, confusion and anger all over their faces.

"Who were they aiming for then? You?" Gus asked looking back down at his best friend. His dark skin looked slightly green and Carlton guessed it was because of all the blood.

"Mary." Lassiter mumbled staring at the ground. Juliet looked up at the little girl and watched as she played with Carlton's ear. The head detective didn't even seem to notice.

"And they hit Shawn instead?" She asked her voice cracking. Lassiter thought back to the moment before the glass had exploded.

"Mary had been sitting on my lap. I'm assuming the shooter was aiming for her head and took the shot just as Shawn jumped up in front of us." Lassiter reasoned wondering how much longer it was going to take the ambulance to get to them.

"Why did he suddenly jump up?" Gus asked, running a shaking hand over his head. Carlton shook his head and felt a sudden wave a relief when the sound of sirens finally met his ears.

"Finally…" He mumbled pulling Mary's hand away from his ear.

"Carlton." Juliet looked up at her partner and this time, she couldn't stop the silent tears from sliding down her face. "Why did he jump up?" she asked, not even acknowledging the tears. Carlton wondered if she even knew they were there.

"He said he had solved the case. " Carlton relented feeling a twang of guilt. The head detective shook his head.

"I'm going out to flag down the ambulance." He announced. Turning on his heel he walked quickly through the living room, in case the shooter was still somewhere out there, though he doubted it, and then into the blood covered hallway. Worrying about going outside with the little girl he set her down, slightly behind the door and had her stand against the wall so that she wasn't visible to anyone outside.

"Mary look at me." The head detective crouched down on one knee so that he was eye level with the little girl. Her big fearful blue eyes stare directly at him. "I need you to stay here and do not move. Whatever you do, do not move." He paused and considered all the people that were about to come into the house, all the do gooders that would try and help Mary, or move her to a safer location, or just move her out of the way. Running a hand over his face he let out an exasperated sigh.

"And, I can't believe I am going to say this, but if anyone try's to pick you up or take you anywhere, you just scream as loud as you can." Carlton rolled his eyes at himself. He knew that out of all the paramedics and cops that were about to come charging into the house, one of them was going to try and get the kid into a police car or take her outside. Carlton shook his head; he knew that if she moved into the open she would be the perfect target for any to get to.

"Do you understand?" he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. She nodded her head solemnly and moved to sit on the ground. Carlton nodded and walked outside. He stood in front of his car and watched as the first police cruiser pulled up, followed by the chiefs car. The angry blond women stormed out of her car and slammed the door shut behind her with such force that the car shook slightly. Right behind her, a storm of various other vehicles screeched to a halt, including an ambulance. Carlton felt a weight lift off his chest at the sight of it. The paramedics rushed out and Carlton pointed to the house,

"He's in the kitchen. Watch out for the blood in the living room." They responded with gruff nods and ran past him into the house. Turning back around Carlton was faced with his very angry interim chief.

"What happened here?" She demanded crossing her arms over her chest.

"Spencer and Mr. Guster came to this cabin this morning on a psychic hunch or something." Carlton began. He didn't really know if Spencer had psychically divined the location of the cabin or not, but in all the excitement he had forgotten to ask. So he just went with it. "They found blood all over the hallway, floor and walls. Then they claim they were chased out by some men wielding guns. When they got back to their office O'Hara and I were waiting for them with Mary. When they told us about the cabin we came up here to investigate. While we were looking around shots were fired and Spencer was hit in the back." Lassiter explained watching as a group of CSI walked passed him.

"Did you catch the guy that shot him?" The chief asked watching Lassiter, her face an unreadable mask. Carlton shook his head and then directed his attention to a group of officers.

"You!" He shouted gaining the groups attention. The group, consisting of five people, walked over to Carlton dutifully.

"Yes sir?" One of them asked, speaking for the rest of the group.

"I want you to go sweep the perimeter and make sure that the shooter isn't still out there." He instructed them gesturing to the wooded area around them. The men all nodded and took off to do as they were told.

"Didn't you sweep the area after the initial shots were fired?" Karen asked watching the five officers disappear around the house.

"Yes. But I want to be sure. I don't want to bring Mary out here with there being a chance that the shooter is still out here." Carlton explained looking around as if he could spot the shooter and take him down himself. The chief's brows knitted together as if something was just dawning on her.

"Are you saying the shooter was aiming for that little girl?" She asked staring coolly at Carlton. The woman was all business, not a flicker of emotion passed over her face. The head detective looked away from the woods and at his Chief.

"Maybe. I don't know. Spencer seemed to think that the shooter was aiming for Mary. And if it wasn't for Spencer's random sporadic movements, then I think Mary would have…" The head detective paused and let the white hot anger burning in his chest cool. For some reason he couldn't help but feel sick at the thought of someone trying to kill a helpless little girl. Especially his little girl. A jolt of electricity shot down his spine at the sudden thought. _His little girl? _Carlton banished the treacherous thought from his mind and looked down at the ground in shame. As if everyone knew what he was thinking. She was just another victim, and with all victims, Carlton knew, you were never supposed to get emotionally invested.

"The kid is inside right now. I wanted to make sure it was safe for her to come out before we took her back to the station." Carlton finished his sentence, not failing to notice the strange look the chief was giving him.

"All right, and then what are we going to do with her?" The chief asked still watching Carlton with that strange look on her face. Carlton pressed his lips into a thin line.

"We are going to hand her over to child protective services." He announced, as if in retaliation to his own thoughts from earlier. The chief's face lost most of its coldness and softened considerably at that statement.

"Detective, it's okay if you care about her." She said. Carlton scoffed at the chief.

"I don't. She is just another witness to a crime and she needs protection from someone that wants to kill her." He stared at the chief, almost daring her to question him. He almost wished that she would question him, so that he could convince her that he was telling the truth about how he felt. And so that he could convince himself as well. The chief fixed him with an, I-really-don't-believe-you look that had Carlton looking away guiltily, but before anymore could be said on the subject a sudden commotion from inside the house caught Carlton's attention. Carlton and the chief both turned to see the paramedics carrying Spencer out on a back bored. Two of the paramedics were tending to Spencer's wounds and yelling something to one another. The duo passed by Carlton quickly, both yelling things the head detective didn't really understand.

"The infection is getting worse. Add another dose of amoxicillin!*" The paramedics rushed past Carlton and the chief without giving them much thought. Carlton put a hand over his face, feeling sick. Spencer looked completely white; the only colors on his face were two red splotches on his cheeks. He wasn't breathing heavily anymore, but that was because of a huge tube that was sticking down his throat. Carlton looked over at the chief. She had a hand over her heart and was staring at Shawn in shock.

"He's hurt really bad." She mumbled more to herself then to Carlton. When she had first learned that Shawn had been shot, she didn't really believe that the pseudo psychic could have been fatally wounded. After all, Shawn was no stranger to getting into bad situations. A fact that everyone was well aware of. Another fact everyone was familiar with was Shawn's uncanny ability to talk or luck his way out of anything too serious.

"He'll be fine. He's stubborn." Carlton mumbled watching the paramedics load Shawn into the back of the ambulance.

"Carlton." The chief turned away from the van just as it peeled out of the driveway, sirens blazing. "You have to find who did this. We don't know for sure if they were really aiming for the little girl. For all we know they really were trying to hit Shawn." Lassiter nodded his head, acknowledging the whole new list of possibilities that this problem would host.

"Then he would need police protection at all times, because the killer is going to want to come back and finish the job." Carlton added, not giving any pause to consider that it might already be too late for Spencer.

"It also means that there is more to this then what Mr. Spencer has told us. It means he knows more and I need you to find out what that is." The chief gave Lassiter a pointed look. The head detective groaned and looked around for the cops he had sent to sweep the area. Wishing they would hurry up he turned his attention back to the chief.

"When doesn't he not tell us everything?" The head detective grumbled, wanting nothing more than to get out of the woods and back into the city. The chief smirked slightly and was about to respond when a blood curdling scream suddenly drew the detectives attention to the house. Lassiter scowled.

"Stay here and tell me when the team I sent out comes back." He mumbled to the chief, gesturing for her to wait. She nodded, a slightly confused and worried look coloring her features, but remained where she was standing. Satisfied that she wasn't going to follow him, Carlton jogged to the house. He walked through the front door and took in the sight before him. A group of CSI and police officers were all crowding around Mary, trying to get her to stop her ungodly wailing. Carlton glared angrily at all of them and pushed his way through the group. Mary stood against the wall, her head tilted back and her little fists clenched. She was screaming as loud as her little lungs would allow.

"Mary!" Carlton barked standing in front of the girl his hands on his hips as if about to reprimand her. The little girl stopped screaming suddenly and smiled up at Lassiter.

"Lassie! "She yelled rushing forward ecstatically and wrapping her arms around one of his legs. The head detective patted her back a few times and then pulled her off of him so that he could look at her.

"Why were you screaming just now?" Lassiter asked her, his face blank. Mary's face morphed into a sad little pout as it turned to look at a scared rookie officer. She pointed an accusing finger at the man and looked up at Lassiter sadly.

"Good job little Mary." Lassiter patted her head and then looked over at the rookie. With the combined glare of a seasoned head detective and a five year old, the rookie shrunk in on himself, looking about ready to wet his pants.

"NO!" Mary suddenly yelled, sounding just as fierce and authoritative as Carlton.

"I want you all to make a note of this experience. Tell everyone at the station. This little girl is not to be touched. She doesn't like it and she will scream." He instructed the confused group surrounding him. They all stared at him blankly, as if they couldn't understand what the head detective was saying. Carlton scanned the faces staring at him; growing impatient with their ineptitude.

"Well? Get back to work!" He snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. The group of people all jump in fear at the sound of his voice and go back to doing whatever it is they were supposed to be doing. Shaking his head Carlton repositioned Mary so that she was leaning against the wall slightly behind the door. A few minutes later the Chief walked into the house cautiously, as if expecting to see more dead bodies, or a fire, or anything at all that would have warranted the blood curling scream she had heard a few minutes ago. Spotting the chief Carlton nodded and turned away from Mary.

"There was no one Carlton. The shooter got away." The chief informed him looking down at Mary. Carlton cursed under his breath. He was hoping that the shooter might have stayed behind long enough to get caught. Of course though, whoever had shot Spencer wasn't that dumb.

"All right. Come on Mary." Carlton reached out for the little girls hand and grabbed it. He noticed how everyone in the room took a collective gasp and shrunk back slightly when he did so. As if they were expecting Mary to start screaming again. When she didn't they all looked up at Carlton with a mix of confusion and awe on their faces. Noticing that they were all looking at him and Mary again Carlton yelled for them all to get back to work before storming into the kitchen to check up on his partner and Guster. Walking into the kitchen, Lassiter noticed that the two were crouched behind the counter as if they were still hiding from possible shooters. Gus was sitting with his head in his hands. There was blood all over his shirt and hands and now, his face. He looked like he was going to vomit at any moment. O'Hara was sitting on her knees, which were soaked in blood, and staring at the red pool on the ground. She was tightly clutching the blood soaked towel she had used staunch the wound on Spencer's back, staining the front of her shirt red. Carlton cleared his throat drawing his partner's attention.

"Carlton…" She mumbled wiping away her tears from earlier. The blood on her hands left little smudges on her face. "The paramedics said he had a fever. That he had an infection!" She whispered hoarsely.

"But it only took them twenty, thirty minutes at the most to get here!" Carlton couldn't believe that in that short amount of time an infection had taken hold of Spencer.

"It's possible." Guster spoke up from his spot on the ground. Thought he didn't look away from the floor. Carlton felt weak. He was sure that his legs were about to give out at any moment. Spencer had had a small chance of surviving getting shot. Add an infection on top of the bullet wound and the pseudo psychics chances decreased even further. Carlton felt a small pressure on his hand and looked down to see Mary staring at him worriedly. Carlton's breath caught in his throat as his resolve strengthened. He couldn't get upset in front of Mary; she had to see him be strong. Straightening his shoulders and attempting to look as composed and collected as possible he nodded once.

"Has anyone called Henry?" He asked staring down at the two people on the floor. They both looked up at him. Guilt written all over their faces.

"All right, then. One of you can call him on the way to the hospital." Carlton turned to head to the car.

"Wait!" Juliet suddenly spoke up behind him. He turned to look at her.

"What about the shooter?" She asked. Carlton's face darkened and he turned around to continue walking to the car.

"He got away. Now come on! Spencer's probably already at the hospital. We can't sit around here all day." Gus and Juliet exchanged looks but didn't argue with the head detective. They walked past the chief and piled into Carlton's car. Slipping the key into the ignition Carlton started the car and drove to the hospital.

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**Sorry about the less then awesome ending here. Seriously though I couldn't think of a way to end it dramatically and so I just yeah…they can't all be cliff hangers! Okay? So, I will probably be updating sooner then last time, becuase of the obvious lack of stuff that happened in this chapter. Praise my need to please you random strangers!  
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***I am no doctor my people. I just looked up, 'what medication is used to fight infection' and that was the first thing that popped up. But its my fanfic! And in my fanfic, you are not allowed to question my medical knowledge. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Weeeeelll, I told you guys I might bring you a chapter a day early. And I did. Kinda. Anyway I have decided to start updating on Fridays so that you can read the new chapters over the weekends. I think that might be better for you guys, but I don't know. When do you think the best day to update is?**

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Pulling into the hospital parking lot Carlton was met with a very agitated Henry.

"What happened?" He roared, rounding on the first person he saw. Which just so happened to be Carlton.

"We were at a crime scene and Spencer got shot." Lassiter snapped, feeling defensive. The head detective slammed his car door shut and pulled open the back door. Reaching in the unbuckled Mary and helped her out. She jumped out of the car and stood next to Lassiter, her eyes wide as she took in Henrys imposing figure.

"Who the hell is that?" Henry growled slightly surprised by the sudden appearance of the little girl. Lassiter looked up at Henry and made a face.

"Has your son told you anything about his most recent case? " He asked dragging Mary towards the hospital. Gus and Juliet had already gone inside. They hadn't even waited for Henry or Lassiter. In fact they hadn't even waited for Lassiter to finish parking. They had jumped out as soon as he had stopped the car.

"He told me that he was helping a woman in witness protection and that her husband was after her. But that's it." Henry explained, following Lassiter towards the hospital.

"Well this is his client's daughter." Lassiter said walking up to a receptionist's desk. Juliet and Gus were arguing with the receptionist so Lassiter just walked up behind them and turned to face Henry.

"What happen to her mother?" Henry asked. Lassiter just shrugged.

"We don't know. Mary showed up at the police station covered in blood. Blood that we assume came from the crime scene we just came from." Henry rubbed his temples and followed Gus and Juliet as they headed towards an elevator, obviously they had gotten the information they were looking for from the receptionist. Crowding into the elevator the group went silent as it climbed to the third floor. With a ding the doors slid open and the group rushed forward.

"The lady downstairs told us that Shawn was in surgery on the third floor." Juliet finally announced standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"So now what?" Henry asked deciding he had asked Lassiter enough questions for now.

"Now we wait over there." Gus explained pointing to a group of chairs clustered around a table covered in magazines. Next to the table was a box full of kid's toys, which attracted Mary's attention instantly. With a collective sigh the group walked over to the waiting area and sat down.

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Three hours later and Lassiter felt bone tired. He had never felt so exhausted before. He was physically drained, now that the adrenaline had worn off, as well as emotionally drained. Spencer had been shot, yes, but they had been aiming for Mary. A fact that still sent waves of anger pulsing through him occasionally. He felt angry and guilty that he was secretly relived it had been Shawn and not Mary. After all, Shawn had a much better chance at surviving a bullet wound to the stomach then Mary had of surviving a bullet wound to the head. Though he thought of how the shooter might not have been aiming for Mary at all. It was entirely plausible that the shooter had aiming for Shawn and that the pseudo psychic had more information than he was sharing. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time that he had withheld information pertaining to a case. Carlton looked down at Mary; the little girl was looking through a picture book tiredly. She was yawning periodically but so far had remained quiet and had played with the toys by the table. As if she could hear his thoughts, Mary stood up and walked over to Carlton rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"Lassie." She started not noticing that everyone was watching her. Lassiter quirked an eyebrow at the girl.

"I wanna go home." She mumbled still rubbing at her eyes. Lassiter sat up in his seat and looked over at his partner. She was staring at Mary with a sad look on her face. There was no where they could take the little girl, nothing they could do for her. Standing up Lassiter stretched and cracked his back.

"Anyone want coffee?" The head detective mumbled looking over at his group of sullen looking co-workers. No one answered him and so Carlton took that as a sign that no one wanted anything. He looked down at Mary and gestured for her to follow him.

"Come on." Carlton walked past the little girl and headed for a hallway with a vending machine in it. Mary followed him and reached out for his hand. She held it until they reached a vending machine and a coffee dispenser. Mary let go of Carlton's hand and pressed her face up against the glass of the vending machine. She peered inside at all the candy, her stomach grumbling hungrily.

"Pick something." Lassiter said looking down the hallway he and Mary had just walked. He could still see the waiting room and could just barely see Gus. The man was sitting slumped in his chair looking just as tired as Carlton felt. Lassiter turned his attention back to Mary.

"That one!" Mary announced pointing a finger at a package of cookies. Deciding to actually give her what she had chosen this time Lassiter nodded and bought the packet of cookies. Grabbing the package and opening it for the little girl Lassiter gave her a cookie and gently ushered her back down a hall.

"All right. Now you have to wait a little bit longer. Just until a man in a white coat comes and tells us weather or not the idiot is okay." Lassiter explained, giving her instructions like he would a rookie cop. Mary looked up at him and smiled with a mouth full of cookie.

"If you understand then just do this." Lassiter made sure the little girl was watching him and then put his hand to his forehead and demonstrated how to salute someone.

"Understand?" He asked still sounding like a man addressing a rookie. Mary lifted her own hand to her forehead and messily saluted Lassiter. Taking another bite of her cookie she ran forward and into the waiting room where the rest of the group was seated. Carlton followed after her and sat back down in his original seat. He watched as she ran around the room and saluted random people as well as Gus, Juliet and Henry. All three of them saluted Mary sadly and watched as she found a doctor and saluted him as well. Another hour passed by and Mary lost most of her energy. Succumbing to her exhaustion, Mary fell asleep with a magazine lying across her lap. After about five minutes of silence, Lassiter suddenly realized that he slightly missed the sounds of the child playing. He pushed the thoughts away and decided to try and think about nothing. The silence was almost unbearable and then, finally, a man in a white coat strode toward them. The man was tall and tanned. He had thick dark blond hair and the kind of chiseled jaw and wide shoulders that Carlton knew most women swooned over. The man stopped in the waiting room and ran his tongue over his perfect white teeth. Everything about the man looked charming and beautiful, except his eyes. His eyes were a cold dark bluish grey color, and instead of holding the warmth and caring spark a person working in a hospital normally had, his eyes seemed indifferent, almost haughty. Lassiter wanted to punch him. He scanned the waiting room with his unemotional and uncaring eyes before fixing them down on the clip bored he was carrying.

"Family of Shawn Spencer?" He asked flipping through a few papers. Everyone in the room stood up and rushed the doctor. Their face's filled with anxiety.

"How's my son doctor?" Henry asked, indicating that the doctor should talk to him.

"The bullet ricocheted off of his rib and lodged itself in his stomach. We had to operate to stop him from bleeding out…" the man said looking down at his clip board again. The doctor sighed as if he was bored. "It was touch and go for a while there. But we managed to stop the bleeding only to encounter a horrible infection." He tucked his clip bored under his arm and looked up at Henry, a slightly irritated look on his face.

"Will he be alright?" Henry asked.

"The infection stopped his heart. His temperature was raising and he did die for a short period of time." The doctor explained blandly. He ran his tongue over his teeth again and looked up at the ceiling. Lassiter, on the other hand, felt his heart drop to his stomach. He looked around at the rest of the people in the group and guess that they were all feeling just as sick as him.

"He…Died?" Juliet mumbled, a shaking hand covering her mouth. The doctor nodded.

"Yes. But we were able to bring him back and cool him off. He is currently in critical condition." He explained. The shaken junior detective closed her eyes and nodded, just happy to hear that Shawn was alive.

"Can we see him?" Gus spoke up hopefully.

"I'm afraid not. He is still in critical condition." The group of people fell silent, contemplating the heavy weight of the doctor's words.

"Damn it!" Lassiter suddenly snapped. The doctor's attitude and everything that had just happened made him want to punch something. The head detective's hand shook and he forced himself to calm down. "When I find the son of a-"A slight tug on his pant leg cut Lassiter's curse short and drew his attention downward. Mary stood next to him, pulling on his pant leg, looking just as tired as everyone in the room. Unlike the other adults though, she looked ready to start crying.

"White coat." She mumbled quietly, pointing at the doctor. Her voice wavered slightly and Carlton could hear the tears in her voice.

"Right, well…" the doctor looked away from Mary and addressed everyone in the group. "You will all have to come back tomorrow. I assure you that Shawn will not be waking up any time soon." With that said the doctor bid farewell to everyone and then turned on his heel to leave. He was halfway down the hallway when Henry decided to followed him. Shooting a look at Carlton and Juliet, Gus followed after his best friend's father.

"Carlton." Juliet started, watching Gus and Henry run after the doctor. Carlton looked over at her, a questioning look on his face.

"What?" He asked, his voice conveying just how exhausted he was.

"Mary can't stay here. She looks about ready to fall over." The junior detective mumbled.

"I haven't even filled out the protective social service paper work yet." Carlton grumbled, turning to look down the hall. Gus and Henry were arguing with the doctor, or rather, Henry was arguing and Gus was trying to calm him.

"You don't _have_ to. It would take all night for that paper work to go through and if Shawn is right then there is a dangerous murder after Mary. Do you really trust her life to someone you don't even know?" Juliet asked. The junior detective knew how much Carlton had come to care for little Mary, even though he would never admit it to anyone out loud.

"So then what do you suggest I do with her?" Carlton asked looking away from the scene down the hall. Mary decided that she wanted Carlton's attention at that moment and so the little girl whined and pulled harder on Carlton's pants leg.

"Laassieeeee!" She cried bouncing up and down a little.

"Carlton." Juliet's voice held a reprimanding tone as if the solution she was thinking of was obvious and something Carlton should know. "You take her home with you." Carlton gaped at her.

"Are you insane?" He said trying to pry Mary's hands off his pants. Juliet crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow at him unhappily. "I don't know the first thing about keeping one of these alive!"

"Just give her food and water and a place to sleep Carlton. It's not that hard." Juliet scoffed at him.

"B-b-but what about the bathroom? Where do they go to the bathroom? Don't I need a box for them or something?" He asked grabbing ahold of O'Hara's shoulders in a panic. Juliet stared at him wide eyed.

"Carlton. She's a toddler, not a cat. She can go in the toilet. Give her normal food, and water, nothing sweet or sugary before bed and she'll be fine." Juliet glanced down the hall and noticed that Henry and Gus were walking down the hallway with the doctor. Apparently Henry had won the argument because it looked like the doctor was taking them to see Shawn.

"There's stuff I _can't _give her? Is there anything else I can't let her eat?" Carlton asked. Juliet rolled her eyes.

"Not really…" she mumbled breaking away from Carlton's grasp. Carlton's hands fell to his side.

"Where are you going?" He asked watching her move down the hallway.

"They're all going somewhere…" Juliet mumbled back, picking up her pace and jogging down the hallway after the doctor, Gus and Henry. Lassiter watched her go, unable to follow her because of the little girl clinging to his pant leg. Carlton looked down at said little girl. Her lip was quivering theatrically and she was still whining.

"White coooooat!" She cried. Carlton groaned and picked her up. Her arms instantly wrapped around his neck sleepily.

"Yeah yeah. White coat." The head detective sighed tiredly and headed towards the elevator.

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**There. Mary Displayed a rare moment of social interaction by saluting other people. haha. next chapter coming soon.**


	7. Chapter 6 point 5

**Hello everyone. This is the filler chapter that I wrote and forgot to put in. I am so sorry about that again. If you're coming back to re read this part that I left out, thank you, if this is you're first time reading this fic and you're not interested in hearing about how unorganized I am, then please continue about your day! Thank you.**

**I dont really know if its filler, I mean it does serve a purpose. It's bringing Mary and Lassie closer together.**

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Lassiter kicked open the door to his house with much difficulty. He stuffed his keys into pockets and struggled into his home, the forty pound sleeping child in his arms making the entire endeavor an extremely difficult ordeal. Carlton stumbled over to his couch and dropped his burden right in the middle of it. Letting out an exasperated groan the head detective stretched, sighing when his back cracked loudly. He stared at Mary for a few seconds. The little girl looked to be sleeping peacefully and so Carlton made his way to the kitchen. He walked into the kitchen and leaned against a counter. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and frowned slightly. A plethora of emotions were swirling inside his chest making it hard to breath. The fact that Shawn had been shot and not Mary made him feel guilty, only because he was relived it had been Shawn and not Mary that had taken the bullet. Then there was the Anger. Anger at himself for caring about Mary, Anger for not being able to stop Shawn from being shot, anger at Shawn for not telling him everything about this case, anger at the shooter, and more anger at himself for not being able to solve the case as quickly as Spencer claimed to of done. Carlton still had no idea what was going on, and with that thought he pushed off from the counter and walked over to his liquor cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of rarely used brandy and poured himself a drink. He set the cup down on his kitchen table and stared at the amber liquid morosely. A voice that sounded suspiciously like O'Hara's echoed through his mind quietly.

"Should you really be drinking while you're taking care of a toddler?" It asked. Carlton sighed, picked up the glass and dumped its contents down the sink. He put away the bottle and looked up at a clock.

"Eleven o' clock?" He mumbled to himself, feeling slightly shocked by the time. It felt like it was much _much_ later than that. It felt like he hadn't slept in days. Heading out of the kitchen Carlton walked back into the living room and stopped dead in his tracks when he realized that something was missing. That something being a brown haired, pink clad, four or five year old little toddler.

"Mary… Mary?!" Carlton scanned the living room and saw nothing but emptiness. "Shit!" The head detective swore loudly and ran down the hallway to the bathroom. He leaned inside and saw nothing out of place. Turning on his heel continued to search, feeling slightly panicked. He rushed into his own room and instantly let out a shaky breath. Mary was there, she was attempting to climb up onto his bed using his blankets. Carlton walked up behind her and put his hands on his hips. The little girl continued to try and pull herself up onto the bed, oblivious to the detective standing behind her.

"There you are!" Carlton exclaimed taking a deep breath to calm his frantically beating heart. Mary jumped at the sound of his voice and let go of the blankets she had been attempting to scale. Landing on the ground clumsily she turned around and held her hands up in the air, indicating she wanted to be picked up.

"What are you doing in here?" Carlton asked eyeing her with suspicion. Mary frowned at him and lifted her arms higher, her hands opening and closing.

"Up!" She instructed him. Carlton scoffed at her.

"Not until you tell me why you think it's okay to go running around in another person's house. I thought you had been kidnapped by a blood thirsty murder. You could have been the next homicide I had to investigate tomorrow. Instead though, I find you in my room trying to get on my bed. Now explain yourself." Carlton folded his arms over his chest and glared down at Mary.

"I go to asleep now!" Mary informed him, a smile splitting her face in two. Carlton's frown intensified at her response.

"You're in trouble! You shouldn't be smiling." He paused as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Besides this is my bed. Not yours. You get to sleep on the couch." He pointed a finger out his bedroom door to illustrate his point. Mary stared at him and then giggled happily.

"Mine!" She yelled smacking the bed with her hand. Before Carlton had a chance to reply she ran towards the door and out into the hallway. Carlton rolled his eyes and followed her into the living room. Mary was standing in front of the couch.

"You." She said smacking the couch with a nod of her head. Running past Carlton, Mary jogged down the hallway as fast as her little legs would carry her. Carlton rolled his eyes again and followed her back into his room. He strode inside his room and watched as she smacked the bed and yelled,

"Mine!" Before darting forward again. Before she had a chance to rush past him and out the door, Carlton reached out for her and wrapped an arm around her stomach. He lifted her off the ground with one arm and adjusted her weight so he could carry her.

"All right, all right I get it. You want to sleep on the bed." He grumbled though slightly amused. Carlton walked over to the bed and set Mary onto it. The little girl laughed and rolled around on the bed energetically. He grabbed a chair that was leaning against the wall next to his night stand and sat in it with a sigh.

"Be careful!" Carlton gasped suddenly, watching the little girl roll dangerously close to the edge. She stopped rolling just before she hit the edge and stared up at the ceiling. After a few seconds of silence she mumbled something just below Carlton's threshold of hearing.

"What did you say?" He asked her, watching her stand up.

"Jump! Jump! Jump!" She yelled bouncing on the bed with each yell. Carlton stood up angrily.

"Stop that!" He yelled. Mary ignored him and continued to bounce on the bed happily. "I ORDER you to cease and desist immediately!" The little girl kicked her legs out in front of her and landed on the bed in a sitting position. Carlton's arms crossed over his chest in suspicion, he wasn't fool enough to assume that his shout had been what had caused Mary's sudden obedience. Rather the detective assumed that the little toddler had tired of bouncing. Mary proved the head detective's assumption correct when she sat up on her knees and leaned forward as if getting ready to perform a summersault.

"Maaary…." Carlton's voice was low and full of warning. He drew out the A and used his most authoritative voice, hoping it would be enough to deter whatever Mary was planning on doing next. The little girl paused long enough to look over at him before she put her head down on the bed, getting ready to do a flip.

"Don't." Carlton stared into her smiling face. Mary stared back at him; she waited a few seconds, as if making sure Carlton was watching, and then flipped. She landed on her back clumsily and bounced slightly, her feet dangling off the bed. Carlton watched her with apprehension. She lay quietly for a few moments and the head detective began to vainly hope that her energy had been depleted. He was disappointed when she began to roll on the bed again.

"Where in the name of sweet justice did all this energy come from?!" Carlton yelled in exasperation. Reaching out he grabbed her foot and drug the little girl towards him. She screeched happily as she was dragged across the bed. Carlton pulled her off the bed and held her in the air so that she was eye level with him. "Do you need to use the bathroom?" grasping at straws, Carlton hoped that all this hyperactivity was steaming from the fact that Mary just needed to use the toilet. Or something. Mary's legs swung back and forth as she hummed and tried to wiggle out of his grasp.

"Mary!" Carlton yelled, gaining the girls attention. Mary's legs stopped swinging and she looked at Carlton blankly. Quickly, before he lost her attention, he asked,

"Do you need to potty?" The room was quiet for a few moments as Mary contemplated what Carlton had just asked her. Or that's what it looked like she was doing anyway. For all Carlton knew the little girl was thinking about dolphins. Finally after much too much thought she responded.

"Yes." Carlton nodded his head and set her down on the ground.

"Now you just follow me." He paused and watched her stare at him blankly. "You. Follow. ME." He said enunciating each word loudly. Mary giggled which Carlton took as understanding on her part. Sighing he walked towards the door and headed down the hallway to where the bathroom was. Gulping loudly he stared at the door.

"O-okay." He was about to turn and ask Mary if she knew what she was doing when the little girl sauntered past him and into the bathroom.

"Pardon me." She said haughtily. Carlton raised a curios eye brow at her and watched as she pushed the door closed. Shaking his head Carlton leaned against the wall and waited for Mary to finish her business. After he helped her wash her hands he followed her into the bedroom and helped her back onto the bed hoping that she was now ready for sleep.

"All right. Are you ready for umm…sleepy time?" Carlton asked trying to switch up his vocabulary so that Mary could understand him better. Mary buried her head in the pillow and shook it.

"No sleep!" She yelled, peaking at him with one eye.

"Well we can't stay up all night. You have to go to sleep eventually." Carlton informed her as he sat down. Mary pushed herself off the pillow and sat on her knees.

"Story!" She exclaimed clapping her hands together. Carlton sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"No stories. Bed time." He leaned forward, "_bed time!"_ he repeated loudly. Mary leaned forward and placed a hand over his mouth and nose.

"Story." She whispered and then flopped backwards onto the bed. Carlton sighed and leaned back in his chair once again.

"Fine. Once upon a time there was a-"

"Princess!" Mary exclaimed, interrupting Carlton. Carlton rolled his eyes.

"All right fine. Once upon a time there was a princess that wouldn't go to sleep." The head detective frowned as he tried to come up with a good story. "One day a wicked umm…" Carlton paused and tried to come up with something entertaining to say. "Dragon…came and cast a spell on her. Then she turned into a… frog. Then a knight from a palace came to investigate this crime. He caught the dragon, booked him, and put him in prison. The end." Carlton glanced over at Mary to judge her reaction to his fantastic story. The little girls face was an unreadable mask until finally she jumped up and yelled,

"I'm a dragon!" She began to bounce around on the bed once more, this time making dragon noises. Carlton jumped up as well and pulled at his hair in frustration.

"Why won't you sleep!?" the head detective yelled storming out of the room.

* * *

Juliet sat next to Henry and Gus in Shawn's room. It had taken a lot of negotiating, and by negotiating Juliet meant yelling, from Mr. Spencer but the ex-cop had gotten the doctor to agree to let all three of them sit in Shawn's room. It had been another three hours and all though they all knew that Shawn wasn't about to wake up, none of them could bring themselves to leave. The doctor had ordered that all three of them refrain from talking but every now and then they would break out and talk about how stubborn Shawn was and about how he was going to be okay. It was during one of these quiet conversations that Juliet's phone rang. Reaching into her pocket Juliet dug out the phone. It was Lassiter.

"Weird." Juliet mumbled.

"What's weird?" Gus asked looking over at Juliet. The junior detective bit her lip.

"It's weird that Carlton's calling me at one in the morning." She explained, second guessing her decision to let Carlton take Mary home with him. What If he really couldn't take care of the four year old? Flipping open the phone Juliet answered quietly.

"Hello?" She asked feeling slightly worried.

"You have to help me." Carlton's voice sounded strained and desperate.

"Why? What's wrong? Did something happen to Mary?" Juliet asked forgetting to keep her voice down.

"She won't sleep…" Carlton hissed into the phone. Juliet let out a small breath of relief.

"Oh..." she mumbled. "That's all." She smiled and leaned back in her chair.

"What do you mean is that all?" Carlton snapped, his voice sounding just as loud and intimidating over the phone as it did in real life. "I have been trying to get her to sleep since eleven o'clock! First she took over my room, then she ran around my house, then she had to use the bathroom, then she demanded I tell her a story and now she is jumping all over my bed! She is going to fall and break her legs O'Hara! I knew this was a terrible idea! I just knew it! I don't even know where she got all this energy. She was asleep one moment and then bouncing off the walls the next…" Carlton stopped ranting and fell silent on the other end. Juliet could faintly hear Mary yelling in the background. She was saying something about being a dragon.

"Are you done?" Juliet asked.

"Yes." Carlton responded.

"Do you feel better?" Juliet crossed her legs and lowered her voice after remembering that she was supposed to be whispering.

"No." Carlton responded grumpily. Juliet smiled slightly.

"Did you put her in some pajamas?" she asked listening to Mary make noise on the other end.

"No…" Carlton responded curtly. Juliet hummed quietly.

"Well, give her something to sleep in and see what happens. Call me if you need anything else." Juliet instructed and then hung up the phone.

* * *

Carlton pulled the phone away from his ear in disgust.

"Just put some pajamas on her? Like that's going to solve everything?" He grumbled angrily not believing that such a simple solution would be the answer. Shaking his head he made his way back into his room. Mary was playing under the covers and talking to herself. Her legs were sticking out of the blankets and she was kicking them up and down. Walking over to his dresser Carlton dug through his shirt drawer. He found the smallest shirt he owned and pulled it out. The shirt had been a birthday gift over five years ago and Carlton had never worn it. It was black and had huge white letters in the middle of it that read, 'Kick ass!'

"This is way too long…" Carlton mumbled to himself noticing the length. Mary would be tripping all over herself in it. Walking out of the room and into his kitchen Carlton searched for a pair of scissors. Finding a pair he cut the shirt just below the letters. Satisfied with his handiwork the head detective walked back into his room.

"Mary…" Carlton walked over to the bed and pulled the covers off of the little girl. She squeaked loudly and rolled over onto her back.

"Mine." She informed him, patting the bed. Carlton rolled his eyes irritably.

"Enough messing around. It's time for bed. Take that dress off and put this on." He instructed her, holding out the shirt so she could see it. "These are your pajamas." Carlton added. Mary sat up and started to pull the dress over her head. The dress was halfway off when it got stuck over her head. Mary whined loudly and sat still, waiting for assistance.

"For the love of…." Carlton reached over and helped her pull the dress over her head. Once off Mary fell backwards onto the bed and rolled towards the edge like a little monkey. "What are you-Mary! You're going to fall!" The head detective watched the little girl roll to the edge of the bed, stop, flip her legs over the side and fall to the ground. The room was silent after that.

"Mary?" Carlton asked walking around the bed to the other side. He got there just as Mary threw her poofy shorts to the ground and darted past him and out of the room. The only remaining article of clothing on her body was the Minnie Mouse underwear that Juliet had put her in. Carlton stared at the door and pulled out his phone, his face blank. It rang once, then twice and then on the third ring Juliet answered.

"Yes Carlton?" her voice was quiet.

"Your pajama idea didn't work." He informed her. There was a slight pause as the information was digested.

"What happened? What did you give her to wear?" Juliet asked her voice almost too low to hear.

"Nothing! Before I could give her the shirt, she stripped down and ran away." Carlton snapped heading for the hallway. He peeked his head out of the door frame and tried to spot Mary. Juliet's soft laugh danced through the phone, irritating Carlton.

"Well then you're going to have to catch her, dress her, and put her to sleep." Juliet informed him, poorly concealing the amusement in her voice. Carlton pinched the bridge of his nose.

"This isn't funny O'Hara!" He snapped, walking into the hallway cautiously. He suspected Mary was hiding somewhere because he couldn't hear her voice. There was no sound at all, there was absolute silence.

"It's kind of funny Carlton." Juliet quipped and Carlton could _hear_ the smile in her voice.

"Whatever. I'll call you again when the pajama thing doesn't work." He hung up the phone and walked into the living room, his _kick ass _shirt in hand. Scanning the living room and looking for any open cabinets he called out, "Mary? Where are you?" A muffled giggle came from the kitchen, giving away Mary's position. Carlton tiptoed into his kitchen quietly hoping to catch Mary off guard with a surprise attack. He spotted her right away; the little girl was hiding under the table with her hands covering her eyes. Carlton frowned at her and walked over to the table.

"That is the worst hiding place ever." He informed her, as she uncovered her eyes and looked up at him. She crawled out from under the table and just as she started to stand up Carlton made his move. He lunged and pulled the shirt over Mary's head. The shirt was still a little long, going down to the little girl's ankles, but she was able to walk in it. Carlton put his hands on Mary's shoulders to stop her from pulling the shirt off and helped the little girl get her arms through the short sleeves. Finally fully dressed Carlton breathed a sigh of relief.

"Now it's bed time." He picked her up, not trusting her to walk by herself and carried her to his bed. Once there he pulled back the covers and set her in the middle of it. She moved to get up but Carlton pulled the blankets over her before she had the chance. Carlton then tucked the blankets in around Mary tightly so that she could hardly move. The head detective nodded in satisfaction and waited for the little girl to attempt defiance again. He would be ready for any insubordination she threw at him this time. Noticing his determination Mary finally gave up. The little girl leaned back into a pillow and Carlton witnessed the most beautiful sight he has seen all night, a yawn. Pulling her hand out of the blankets with some degree of difficulty Mary rubbed her eyes tiredly. She blinked a few times and then turned over onto her side. Suppressing a yawn himself Carlton headed for the door.

"If you need me I will be out there on the couch. Do not leave this bed until morning. Do you understand?" He asked eying the child suspiciously. He couldn't believe that she was really about to go to sleep. He suspected she was just trying to trick him into dropping his guard. Mary saluted him sloppily, her eyes drooping tiredly. Nodding his head Carlton turned off the light, walked out of his room and pulled the door closed, leaving it slightly ajar. He made his way to his couch and, fully clothed, fell onto it in a tired heap, asleep before his head even hit the pillow.


	8. Chapter 7

**This may seem completely unrealistic child behavior, but I assure you. The things that Mary does are all based on things my small cousin does. It's awful. So terribly awful. Oh and I feel like I should also point out that a common thing children are taught to do is sing the Happy birthday song when they wash their hands so that they know when their hands are clean. **

**You're supposed to sing happy birthday twice and then you can stop washing your hands! And sorry for the lateness. Power outages were running rampant around here and so I have been without power for a while. Damn snow.**

* * *

Carlton awoke the next morning with a start. The head detective stared up at the ceiling in confusion, not sure what has just awoke him. He sat up and looked around his living room. Nothing seemed out of place, and yet Carlton was sure that something was wrong. He rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head, trying to clear it of his sleepiness, when he froze. He heard a small sound, and identified it as the same noise that had awoken him. Straining his ears he sat in silence and listened for the sound again. There was nothing at first and then, so quiet he could hardly hear it, soft giggling reverberated through the living room. Carlton lifted himself off the couch slowly and looked around the room, still listening intently. All was silent, and everything looked to be in order.

"Mary?" he turned and pulled both knee up onto the couch so he could turn around, lean over, and look behind the couch. There was nothing there but empty space. Carlton yawned; feeling too tired to adequately deal with whatever was going on and got up off the couch. The head detective shrugged and decided to go check on Mary and see if she was still asleep. He made it halfway down the hallway when a giggle from behind him stopped him dead in his tracks. Carlton turned slowly and spotted the toddler he had been about to go check on. She was standing on top of his counter with her hand over her mouth as if suppressing laughter. Carlton's eyes widened in shock,

"What are you doing!" He gasped. There were various drawers open and Carlton assumed that the little girl had opened them and used them as a makeshift stair case to get to the top of the counter. There were also a few pots and pans scattered all over the floor. Mary lifted her arms above her head like people at baseball games do when they are trying to start the wave.

"MURKER!" She yelled jumping slightly. Carlton stumbled forward, afraid she was going to fall.

"Mary get-wait…" His eyes drifted up towards her hand, the little girl had a firm grip on a black permanent marker. "Where did you get that…" He whispered horrified at all the possibilities a little girl with a marker could create. She laughed again and tossed the marker into the air, it fell to the ground and before Carlton can reprimand the little girl she began to count.

"One!" She started, bringing her arms down and bending her legs.

"What are you doing?" Carlton pulled his eyes away from the marker and looked at the little girl standing on his counter.

"Twoo!" She continued ignoring his questions, like always.

"Mary?" Carlton's voice was exhausted and full of apprehension.

"Tree!" She scram jumping off the counter. Carlton gasped in shock and hardly had any time to open his arms and catch the little girl.

"Oof!" his knees nearly gave out when the little girl slammed into him, one of her elbows nearly hit his face, but he managed to dodge it in time.

"Damn it Mary!" He snapped holding her out in front of him.

"Damn it!" Mary mimicked. She laughed and kicked her legs; attempting to break free of his grasp. Carlton sighed loudly. Looking around the room an idea formed in his head. The head detective walked over to a corner in his house and set Mary down. Crouching so that he was eye level with the little girl, he fixed her with his most reprimanding glare.

"Now you listen to me…" He paused and fumbled with what to call her. "Young…Lady!" He continued, going off of how he had seen other mothers address their children, he hesitated slightly, realizing he had just thought of Mary as his child and thought of himself as her mother, "You will not climb up on those counters ever again. And no more jumping on the bed." Carlton paused and looked at Mary's face, she was staring at him with wide eyes.

"Also, you are not to throw things or play with markers or crayons unless I say it's okay! Do you understand?" He snapped. Mary was silent and then she looked down slightly, her eyes grew wide and her bottom lip stuck out, quivering slightly.

"I'm sowee." She apologized. She clasped her hands together in front of her and turned to the side slightly so she could pout effectively. Being caught off guard by her terrible cuteness, Carlton faltered. But only slightly.

"Uh, that's good." He stuttered looking away from the girl. "Now you, stay here and um…" He looked back into her pouting face. It was the most efficient interrogation deflecting technique he had ever seen. But he was Carlton Lassiter, greatest detective in Santa Barbra, and he would not fall victim to her distraction technique! "Think about what you have done!" He spun her around so that he couldn't see her face and then stomped off to the kitchen. He closed all the drawers she had opened and picked the marker up off the ground. Once he was finished he turned to check on Mary and saw that she was looking at him.

"Face the wall criminal." Lassiter commanded pointing towards the wall. The pout on Mary's face dropped instantly, replaced with an angry little scowl. She stomped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. Despite her attitude she faced the wall, doing as Carlton instructed. Shaking his head he left the kitchen and walked into his room. His bed side table drawer was open and the contents were strewn all over the ground. Carlton grumbled to himself and guessed that Mary had found the pen in there. His blankets were also all over the ground and his dressers draws were all open. The dresser drawers looked like the kitchen drawers indicating that Mary had used them as a staircase. Carlton walked over to his dresser and looked it over. The lamp shade was missing, but other than that, everything was in its place. Sighing at the mess Carlton set the pen on top of his dresser and walked over to the side of his bed. He picked up the clothing that Mary had thrown on the ground the previous night. Stepping over blankets Carlton walked out of the room and back into the kitchen.

"All right Mary, that's enough. Come over here." He crouched down and kneeled on the ground, his knees screaming at him in protest. Mary walked over to him with her arms crossed and her chin high in the air. She made a defiant little, 'hmming' noise with her throat when she reached him.

"Take that off and put this back on." He instructed holding out the fluffy pink dress. Mary eyed it suspiciously and Carlton could tell she was contemplating running off naked again. "Don't even think about it." He grumbled staring at her face. The pout intensified and Mary grabbed the dress from Carlton's hands.

"I do it." She announced haughtily, turning away from him, still determined to have nothing to do with Carlton. Carlton rolled his eyes skyward.

"All right then hurry up and get dressed." He sighed and headed for the bathroom. He walked down the hallway, listening for the telltale sounds of a little girl not getting dressed. He didn't know what those sounds would be exactly, but not hearing anything unusual he decided it was safe to use the bathroom quickly. Carlton walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He locked the door and then turned to face the mirror. The sight that greeted him made him freeze and stare in absolute horror.

"Oh. My. God." His breath hitched in his throat and he had to force a deep breath out slowly. The reason that Mary had been holding a marker suddenly became clear. The reason there were no drawings on the walls now also made sense. Carlton stumbled forward and grasped the edges of his sink; he leaned in close and stared at the mirror as if what he was seeing was nothing but an illusion. Carlton's face was covered in little doodles and scribbles. There were loops that started at the top of his head and went all the way down to his lips. Small little clusters of scribbles decorated his forehead, cheeks and the left side of his chin. There was a smiley face under his eye and what looked like the letters B and R clustered above his lip. There were various marks and lines, none of which made sense, all over his face. Carlton stumbled backwards a hand coming up to touch his face.

"Mary…MARY!" He yelled loudly feeling extreme anger. He stormed out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. Mary was standing with her dress on backwards, looking up at him with big wide eyes. Carlton inhaled angrily, his nostrils flaring and then he saw the tremor of fear that flashed through the little girls eyes. It was quick, almost unnoticeable, but Carlton saw it. The second he did, all his anger evaporated. Instantly he felt guilty, His shoulders slumped like he was deflating and he crouched down onto the ground. He was still angry, but that little bit of fear he had seen made him feel sick with guilt. He didn't want Mary to be afraid of him.

"Now you listen here." He started, keeping his face blank. Mary cocked her head to the side and stared at him, her eyes still wide. "Did you do this?" He asked staring into her eyes. She instantly looked away. The little girl put her hands behind her back and rocked backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet.

"Noooo…." She lied, looking up at the ceiling. Carlton's eyes narrowed.

"Well then who did?" He asked grabbing her shoulder lightly. The contact made Mary look at him. She shrugged her shoulders.

"A ghost did it." She informed him. Carlton pressed his lips into a thin line.

"Well then why did you have a marker in your hand this morning?" He asked.

"The ghost gave it to me." She announced looking away from Carlton again. Carlton glared.

"Really? So If I go and retrieve that pen and send it down to the people at the lab, your finger prints won't be all over it? If it was really a ghost then there should be no finger prints at all! And if you somehow managed to wipe the weapon down before you threw it, then we can do a handwriting analysis. Is that what you want? Or do you just want to tell me the truth and spare me the paperwork? Everything will be a lot easier on you if you just confess." Carlton let go of the girls shoulder and crossed his arms over his chest, forgetting that he was talking to a five year old for a moment. He was reminded when she stared at him blankly and then said,

"He goes like this-"she covered her eyes with her hand and then removed them quickly adding a loud, "BOO!" Carlton sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.

"Mary, how old are you?" He asked. Realizing for the first time that no one truly knew the little toddler's age. Mary held up a hand, proudly displaying four fingers.

"This many." She explained. Carlton nodded. Not five, but four.

"When you do something bad you get in trouble for it. But if you do something bad and then lie about it then you get in even MORE trouble because lying is bad." He stared at Mary hoping that his words had not fallen on deaf ears. Finally Mary looked down and dug her toe into the ground guiltily.

"Sowee. I drew on you." She admitted. Carlton smiled at her and patted her head.

"I'll forgive you as long as you promise never to draw on me again." She nodded and Carlton helped her turn her dress around. Once it was facing the right way he handed her a pan that was sitting on the ground from the mess she had created earlier. "Now play with this. I have to go to the bathroom." He pushed up off the ground and walked back to the bathroom to try and wash the marker off his face.

* * *

Carlton walked out of the bathroom about an hour later. His face was bright red from all the scrubbing he had done, and there were still some faint lines and marks visible on his cheeks. Walking out into the kitchen Lassiter hoped to whatever god was listening that Mary hadn't destroyed the house while he had been gone. He hadn't heard her make any noise, and he had left the door open while he was in the bathroom so he assumed she hadn't made much of a mess. How wrong he was. There were even more pots and pans scattered all over the floor, some upside down and many of them stacked on top of each other. Lassiter stared blankly at them. There were two stacks right in front of each other. Mary stood behind one stack, a pan on her head and a wooden spoon in her hand.

"Pew Pew!" She cried, using the spoon as a weapon. Lassiter realized she was pretending to fight imaginary people on the other side of the stack of pots and pans.

"What are you doing?" Carlton asked her, watching as the little girl jumped in surprise.

"Shhh!" She hissed tossing the spoon to the ground. "There are dragons." She got on the ground and rolled to the right, the pot falling off her head. Carlton shrugged and stepped over the pots and pans on the ground, he didn't understand children at all, and he wasn't about to try and understand this one. So instead he walked over to her, picked her up and carried her over to his dinner table and sat her down in a chair.

"All right little Mary." Carlton pushed the chair in so that she was closer to the table; her nose barely reached the top of it. "Stay here. I'll find you some breakfast." Carlton walked into the kitchen, stepping lightly over the pans, and looked through his food. He spotted some blue berry muffins behind a can of soup and picked them up. "Do you like blue berries?" He asked walking over to Mary. She shook her head violently.

"No!" She cried putting her hands on the top of the table.

"You don't like them?" He asked, tossing them on the table unhappily. What else was he supposed to feed her if she didn't like muffins? He didn't have any cereal.

"Makes me sick." Mary explained pushing the package away from her. Carlton waved a dismissive hand at her.

"Yeah yeah. You don't like them. I get it." He paused and considered actually cooking something, or giving her the left over Chinese food in his fridge.

"NOO! Sick like this!" She grabbed his sleeve and pulled on it until he looked at her. Once she had his attention she put her hands on her neck and made little coughing noises. "Then do this!" She used her pointer finger to stab herself in the leg and then lifted her arms in the air triumphantly. "Then all better!" She smiled up at Lassiter and let her hands fall onto the table with a loud smacking sound. For some reason Lassiter understood what she was saying. A few days ago he didn't think he would have understood a single word of the little girl's gibberish, but now, now Lassiter knew her better then he knew O'Hara.

"You're allergic to blueberries?" He asked pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table as well. Mary nodded and her lopsided pigtails bounced around her head. Lassiter frowned and wondered about other allergies she could have.

"What else are you allergic to?" He asked. If he was going to be taking care of her and feeding her then he should defiantly know what kinds of foods might possibly kill her. Mary fidgeted in her chair as she thought.

"I'm alergick to Citus and Bluberrie and Pieapple and Tangins." She explained. The way she said it made Carlton realized that it was a well-rehearsed answer. As if her mother had taught her what to say in case anyone ever asked.

"You're allergic to citrus fruit." Carlton leaned back in his chair and then a small smile crept onto his face. Mary was allergic to Pineapple. The thought made him remember Spencer. Then he paused again, "Blueberries aren't citrus…" He shook the thought from his head and addressed Mary again.

"All right let's get your shoes on." Carlton announced helping Mary down from the chair. The girl obeyed him and landed on the ground with a soft plop. Lassiter ushered her towards the door and decided they could just eat out.

* * *

**Mary is allergic to pineapple. Haha, if lassie were a child he would so totally be Mary….if he was female…anyway, Its kind of hard to write down how kids pronounce things. I had my little three year old cousin pronounce the fruits that Mary said and that's how my cousin said them. I don't know how I would really write them though, so whenever you read anything that mary says, read it the way its spelled because that how its being pronounced…unless its like a normal word that's not misspelled at all. Then just read it normally…**


	9. Chapter 8

**Okay, so I have been kinda playing around with Mary and Carlton for the past few chapters...but I really like them! Anyway, here's another chapter and look! I posted it early.**

* * *

Lassiter pulled into the hospital parking lot quickly. Finding a parking space after a few minutes of searching the head detective pulled in and switched the car off. Carlton's chest felt tight and he felt like there was a rock lodged in his throat. He sighed once and looked up at the huge building, it loomed over him ominously. There were only two ways that a person could leave that place, alive or dead and Carlton didn't yet know how Spencer would be leaving. The thought made him queasy and once again Carlton wished that there was something he could have done to prevent what had happened in that cabin. He continued to stare until a quiet humming noise reminded him of the passenger sitting in the back seat of his car. Carlton's eyes flicked up towards the rear view mirror. Mary was quietly humming to herself and staring out the window. After the head detective had taken her out to breakfast, he had taken her hair out of its lopsided pigtails. Unable to put them back up properly Carlton had left her hair down and it now curled around her face messily. Mary stopped humming and pushed a few stray curls out of her eyes. She looked up at Carlton through the mirror and smiled widely, showing off the gap in-between her two front teeth. Carlton thought back to when he was little; he had had a gap in-between his teeth as well and had required braces. He wondered if Mary would also need braces. Mary's curls fell back into her eyes, but she didn't seem to notice. Carlton looked away from the mirror, his face darkening as he wrestled with guilt.

Shawn had been shot. Mary could have been shot, but it had been Shawn. He was in no way glad that Shawn had been wounded, or that Shawn was close to dieing. Despite what he claimed, he really did like so called psychic. Spencer was a good person, and a good friend. Still, he was glad that it had been Shawn and not Mary. The thought left him feeling sick with guilt. He wished no one had been shot. Carlton sighed loudly and leaned forward, not wanting to go into the hospital and face Spencer. Shaking his head Carlton opened the door and stepped out into the parking lot. A warm breeze smelling of salt whipped around him, and although the wind wasn't cold, it sent a shiver down his spine. Carlton turned and opened the back door. Without needing any help, Mary unbuckled herself and jumped out of the car.

"Let's get this over with…" Carlton grabbed Mary's hand, the gesture second nature to him by now, and led her into the hospital. With the quietly buzzing florescent lights, and the smell of bleach, Carlton's dread intensified. What if Spencer hadn't made it through the night? What it the infection had killed him a second time? Carlton glared at everyone that passed, a nervous habit, until he reached the elevator. He reached out to press the up button when Mary suddenly yelled.

"I press it!" She squeaked pushing Lassiter's hand away. Lassiter frowned at her and grabbed her hand before she could press the button.

"You don't talk to adults like that Mary. Especially Detectives. You say, May I press it?" Carlton informed her. Mary blinked in surprise and then repeated her statement,

"May I press it!" She asked, though it came out more as a statement. Carlton's mouth curved upward in a slight smirk.

"Of course you may, little one." He let go of her hand and watched her stab the button four times before stopping. She took a step backwards and Carlton grabbed her hand quickly, sensing she was about to run off. She looked up at him and frowned; her plan thwarted and slumped poutily as they waited for the elevator. The doors slid open and Carlton nodded sullenly at the elevators only other occupant. A woman wearing a long sleeved black turtle neck and blue jeans nodded back at him. She had short red hair pulled into a tight pony tail and thick glasses obscuring her dark green eyes. As soon as they walked in Mary turned to Carlton and said,

"May I press the button!" Once again it was phrased as a statement, but the little girl still stared up at Carlton, waiting for an answer. Carlton smirked proudly,

"Yes you may." He responded. The women looked over at Carlton, her eyes sparkling.

"Oh your daughter is absolutely adorable!" She cooed. She had a slight accent, but Carlton couldn't place it. Carlton nodded back at her.

"She's not my daughter." He looked over at Mary and instantly regretted his decision to let her push the button when he noticed that they were all lit up. Carlton looked away from the buttons and back at the women. "Uh…Sorry about that." He mumbled awkwardly. The women smiled,

"Kids will be kids." She shrugged. The elevator dinged open on the second floor, but the women didn't get out.

"What floor are you getting off on?" Carlton asked her. For some reason he felt responsible for Mary's actions. The women smiled tightly at him.

"Floor fifteen." She said. Carlton stared at her blankly as the elevator slid shut.

"So if she isn't your daughter then who is she?" The women asked looking away from Carlton and down at Mary.

"She's the daughter of a woman in witness protection. We found her covered in blood outside the police station." Carlton deadpanned. He turned away from the women as the elevator to the third floor opened. He grabbed Mary's hand and turned to look back at the women. Carlton noticed that she looked paler for some reason.

"Ma'am." He nodded goodbye at her and walked out of the elevator.

* * *

Carlton hesitated just before pushing open Spencer's hospital room door. A nurse had told him that Spencer had made it through the night alive, but that he had yet to wake up. Carlton glanced down at Mary,

"All right, when we go in here I don't want to hear a peep out of you. Do you understand? Spencer is very sick and we don't want to wake him up. Do we?" He asked her, waiting for a response. Mary shook her head.

"No." she mumbled, pushing her curly hair out of her face in vain. Carlton nodded, satisfied and pushed the door open quietly. Juliet, Guster and Henry were all standing in the middle of the room whispering quietly. They all turned when he entered and stared at him.

"Carlton?" Juliet looked at him in surprise. Carlton raised an eyebrow at her.

"What are you doing here?" Gus asked, and then suddenly looked away in embarrassment, realizing that he sounded ruder then he had intended. "I mean, I thought you wouldn't come here today, err, because…" he trailed off uncomfortably. Juliet rolled her eyes at him.

"What he means is; we weren't expecting you and Mary." She smiled and walked over to him. Carlton nodded and looked over at Shawn; he was pale and breathing shallowly.

"How is he?" Carlton asked. Juliet looked over at Shawn and then down at the ground.

"He's doing better. They took him off the breathing ventilator last night." She informed him, worrying her lip. Carlton nodded and the room fell into an awkward silence.

"They said that they expect Shawn to wake up sometime today even." Gus added looking down at the floor. Carlton just nodded again and continued to stare at the ground. He clenched his hands into fists, relieved to hear that Spencer was going to be all right despite being shot. That's when the head detective realized something that shot ice down his spine. He wasn't holding Mary's hand. Carlton's head snapped up just in time to see Mary pull the pillow out from under Shawn's head. Shawn let out a yelp when his head hit the bed and sat up quickly.

"What the…" The pseudo psychic paused as his face scrunched up in pain and went white. "Uuuggghhh…" Shawn wrapped an arm around his stomach and looked up at the people in the room with hazy eyes.

"Oh Shawn!" Juliet rushed over to Shawn's side and grabbed his hand. Lassiter looked away from Shawn and down at Mary angrily.

"Why would you do that?" He snapped at her storming over to her and grabbing the pillow from her hands roughly. Mary stared up at him with wide eyes, but did not respond.

"You see that chair over there?" Carlton asked her, glaring fiercely. Mary looked to where he was pointing and she nodded quickly once. "March over there this instant and do not get up from that chair until I tell you too." Carlton's tone left no room for argument and so Mary did exactly as she was told. She walked over to the chair, with her shoulders slumped, climbed up onto it and sat quietly.

"And I mean it. Do not get out of that chair." Carlton reprimanded her and then turned his back on her, determined not to give her any more attention. Turning back to Shawn Carlton realized that everyone was looking at him. He bit the inside of his cheek.

"What?" He asked gruffly, looking from one person to the next. Even Shawn was staring at him, a hazy look of disbelief on his pale and sweating face.

"Whoa…" Shawn mumbled his voice hoarse. "How long have I been out? Lassies…" Shawn shuddered and drew a shaky breath, "Lassie sounds like my dad." Juliet snickered at Shawn's comment and reached out to take the pillow away from Lassiter. He handed it over, his face turning bright red.

"Uh…sorry about Mary. Spencer." Lassiter apologized angrily. He didn't like apologizing to Spencer for something that he hadn't even done, but for some reason he still felt that odd sense of responsibility for Mary's actions. Juliet placed the pillow under Shawn's back and pushed the button on the bed that made it tilt upwards. After the bed was horizontal and Shawn was sitting up he responded.

"It's alright. I was actually awake before she did that." Shawn's voice was low and quiet like he was fighting to stay awake. "I was listening to you guys talk when you first came in." Shawn's eyes began to drop slightly and his voice got quieter. "It was really awkward…" Shawn mumbled. Lassiter stepped closer to Shawn, he could tell the pseudo psychic was about to fall back asleep.

"Spencer…" Lassiter glanced at all the people in the room quickly. "Spencer, do you know who shot you? You said you solved the case…" Lassiter felt bad about asking Shawn, especially since this was the first time he had been awake since being shot, but he had to know. Shawn looked up at Lassiter, confusion plain on his face.

"I don't know…" He mumbled staring blankly. Lassiter frowned at him.

"You don't know who shot you?" Carlton asked. Shawn shook his head again.

"No, I don't know what case you're talking about." Shawn clarified, sinking into the pillows drowsily. Carlton felt his hear skip a beat.

"The case with Mr. and Mrs. Gubbard, in witness protection… and their daughter. You were in their house, that's how you got…shot…" Carlton trailed off at the look Shawn was giving him. The pseudo psychic's eyes closed fully,

"I don't remember." He mumbled, before passing out completely. Lassiter stared at Shawn in silence. This couldn't be happening. The only person, who had figured out what was going on, didn't remember figuring it out. Carlton covered his mouth with his hand and looked up at Gus.

"What else have you two found out about this case?" He asked storming away from the bed and over to Gus. Gus lifted up his hands in surrender.

"I don't know! It's not just you that Shawn leaves out of the loop. He leaves me out of it too." Gus gulped and looked over at his sleeping friend. "He says its only fun to explain it to everyone when no one knows what's happened." Gus's shoulders slumped and once again the room was left in silence. Carlton looked over at Mary; she was chewing on a strand of her long hair nervously, looking anywhere but at the people in the room. Carlton sighed and felt slightly bad about punishing her. He began to walk over to her when his phone suddenly rang. Digging into his pocket Carlton pulled out the small device and answered it curtly.

"Detective Lassiter." There was silence on the other end for a few seconds. Carlton frowned and was about to hang up when Chief Vicks voice reached his ears.

"Detective." Her voice sounded strained.

"Chief?" Carlton walked over to Mary and grabbed her hand. She looked up at him and allowed herself to be led out of the room. Carlton exchanged glances with everyone else in the room, indicating that he was leaving and pushed out the door before they could respond.

"Carlton." The chief's voice was low, almost sympathetic. Carlton stopped outside Shawn's room, slightly worried. "Carlton, we found Mary's mother." She explained. Carlton's eyes widened in shock and he looked down at his young ward.

"Did you find her or did you…" Carlton trailed off, looking away from Mary.

"We located her. She lives in an apartment downtown. That's where she is now."

"Oh…" He shook away his disappointment. This is what he had wanted, he had wanted to find Mary's mother and get rid of the kid.

"She claims to have been looking for Mary since yesterday and when she went into the police station today with a picture of her daughter, Buzz recognized it and sent her to me. I told her to go home and wait for you there so that you could bring Mary directly home." The chief explained, her tone still low.

"Oh." Was all Carlton could mutter. He squeezed Mary's hand and realized that he hardly knew this little girl. He had just today learned of her allergy to pineapple. He didn't even know her real name. That thought slapped him in the face and he cleared his throat.

"What...What's her name?" Carlton asked walking forward. Mary jogged to keep up with his long strides.

"What? OH!" There was a pause and the sound of papers shuffling and then, "Her name is Brooke. Brookell Gubbard." Carlton nodded and then remembered he was on the phone.

"Understood Chief, I'll take her to her mother." Carlton got the address from the Chief and then hung up the phone. Stopping in front of the elevator Carlton sent a side long glance at Mary. She was still pouting.

"Brooke?" Carlton used her real name, the word seemed strange to him. Mary's head snapped up to look at him, confusion coloring her features. Her face contorted and she began to cry quietly.

"I'm sowee!" She cried burying her face into his leg. Carlton's eyes widened in surprise as he realized that she was probably still upset about being yelled at earlier. He sighed and knelt down, putting on a blank face.

"Okay, Okay. Just don't do it again or you won't get off so easy next time." Carlton smiled thinly her and ruffled her hair affectionately. She squealed in delight, her tears drying up. Carlton stood, his smile growing. "All right kid. Let's get you home.

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**When I think about Carlton parenting STYLE and the way he would handle children I consider who he was raised by. And since the only mention of his childhood comes from the episode, high noonish, I don't really have a lot to go on. I mean, it pretty much says that Carlton was raised by a cowboy. A fake cowboy running a tourist attraction, but a cowboy none the less. So that's that. Oh and I know absolutely nothing about medical stuff. Just go with it people. Just pretend that what I say is true when it comes to stuff. Oh and if you do have intimate knowledge of medical knowledge drop your username so I can pester you with medical question. Haha…just kidding…kinda….**


	10. Chapter 9

**All right. Here's your chapter. Right on scheduled. Just as I promised...**

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Lassiter parked in front of the apartment where Mary's mother lived. Or rather, where Brookes Mother lived. The apartment was downtown in a middle class neighborhood and It was right on the beach making Carlton suspect that the rent wasn't cheap. Carlton pushed open his door and helped Mary out of the back seat. He checked the directions he had written down and started walking along the side of the building. Mary's mother was on the first floor, room 8b. Carlton walked slower than usual so that Mary could keep up with him this time. He looked down at the little girl; she was looking around at everything excitedly.

"Beach!" She pointed to the ocean and looked up at Carlton with a wide smile. Lassiter nodded.

"Do you like swimming?" He asked her.

"Yeah!" She cried trying to break free from Carlton and run towards the water. Carlton frowned at her and held onto her hand firmly.

"Mary, were not here to go swimming. Were here to take you home." He informed her. Mary looked up at him with furrowed brows.

"Home?" She looked around as if looking for her house and then she suddenly fell silent. Carlton was about to ask her what was wrong when he realized they had reached the door they had been looking for. Carlton lifted his arm and knocked on the door three times. There was a commotion inside and what sounded like something being knocked over and then the door swung open suddenly, making Carlton stumble back in surprise. A woman with long blond curly hair stood in the door way breathing heavily. She was wearing a red belly shirt and low tight jeans. She looked Carlton over suspiciously and then her eyes fell on Mary. Her hands covered her mouth and as her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh…"The women darted forward and scooped Mary up in a tight hug. "Oh my baby!" She cried, swinging Mary back and forth and planting kissed all over her face. Mary whined unhappily at all the contact until her mother put her down. The women grabbed Mary's hand and looked up at Carlton.

"Oh thank you so much detective. That police chief women told me that you had been taking care of my daughter since yesterday morning." She sniffled and gestured for Carlton to come in. He walked in and shut the door behind him.

"Yes Ma'am. I actually wanted to ask you about that." Carlton stood in the middle of the living room awkwardly, it was meticulously clean in the room and everything looked brand new. The carpets were perfectly white and there were big flashy expensive looking photos on the walls. There were also shelves on the walls that held strange abstract art that made no sense to Carlton at all. On one end of the room there was a huge plushy red couch and on the opposite side of the room there was a huge plasma screen TV complete with an expensive looking surround sound system.

"Would you like something to drink detective? Coffee? Tea? Water?" The women pushed Mary over to the couch and set her down on it, drawing Carlton's attention away from the TV. "Stay here Brookel l dear." She instructed before turning her full attention back onto Carlton.

"No thank you. If you wouldn't mind I would like to ask you a few questions Mrs…" Carlton glanced over at Mary. She was chewing on a strand of her hair nervously and staring at the ground.

"Oh, just call me Kristina. And please feel free to ask me anything detective." Kristina strode over to the couch and ran a hand through her long blond locks, pushing them out of her face. She sat down and wrapped an arm around Mary. There were no other seats in the living room, the only pieces of furniture being the couch and the TV, so Carlton remained standing.

"All right, could you please tell me when you first realized that Ma-Brookell was missing?" Carlton pulled out his notepad and looked down at it. Kristina leaned back into the couch cushions and crossed her legs.

"Oh, well yesterday morning me and Brooke got up early to go do our grocery shopping." She looked away from Carlton and down at Mary. Smiling sadly. "I guess I was just feeling overly confident. You know I went and talked to that psychic to get help."

"Help for what?" Carlton asked taking a few notes.

"Didn't he tell you?" the women asked.

"Yes, but I need to hear your side of the story Ma'am." Carlton explained. The women nodded and flicked one of her long curls over her shoulder.

"Right, well some men who were after my husband had been following me and Brooke. They thought I knew where my awful husband was. I didn't, of course. I've been in witness protection for such a long time that I have lost all contact with him." She paused and waited for Carlton to finish writing before continuing.

"Go on." Carlton mumbled looking up at Mary. The little girl looked up at him with a strange look on her face.

"Right, well I was feeling a little over confident because after I had gone and seen that psychic, the men who had been following me, disappeared. I thought, maybe the psychic had taken care of them….or something. Anyway, I went to the store, put Mary in a shopping cart and then…I only turned for a moment. I was looking through the cereals." Kristina sighed and looked at the ground guiltily.

"And then?" Carlton asked staring intently at her. She continued to look at the ground.

"When I turned around she was gone. Taken right out from under my nose, right out of my cart." she looked up at Carlton sadly. Carlton frowned at her.

"Which store was this?" Carlton asked. Kristina touched the side of her face.

"Oh it was a Safeway or something near the police station." She explained. Carlton's frown grew.

"What were you doing near the police station? This apartment isn't anywhere near the police station." He questioned her. Kristina touched the side of her face again and looked up at Carlton, batting her eyelashes in confusion. She pouted and Carlton realized that the pout reminded him of Mary. They looked alike.

"I was still a little paranoid I guess. I drove as far away from my apartment as I could without going too far." She laughed slightly and a light blush colored her delicate features. "I was trying to lose anyone that could have been tailing us." She explained, slumping her shoulders. Carlton looked away from her, unnerved by her resemblance to Mary. Then another thought occurred to him.

"Does Mar-Brooke. Does Brooke usually scream when people try to pick her up?" He asked, resisting the urge to slap himself for nearly calling her Mary again. Kristina regarded Carlton with a strange look.

"Uh, no. No she doesn't." She mumbled. Carlton nodded.

"What did you do once you realized that Brooke was missing?" Carlton asked looking up to watch the women's face.

"I went home and waited." She said lifting her chin up defiantly. Carlton raised an eyebrow.

"You went home?" He asked suspiciously. She nodded.

"Yes, I figured the only person that would have taken her would be the people looking for my husband. So I waited at home for them to call and offer my daughter for my husband." She explained.

"But they never called?" Carlton asked.

"But they never called. I waited until the evening and then I went to the police. I put out a missing person report thing and then in the morning I came back to the police station." She explained. Carlton nodded. The first time she had gone to the station must have been around the same time that Shawn had been shot. It was no wonder that the missing persons report had been over looked. Anyone that had seen Mary with Carlton would have been up at that cabin responding to the call he had put out. Despite how well it all fit, Carlton felt something was still off.

"Do you know where your husband is?" Carlton asked unable to identify why he felt that something wasn't right.

"No. I have no idea." she touched her face again and looked away sadly. "I wish I did, I wish these people would just leave me alone." Carlton sighed and flipped his notebook closed.

"What kinds of illegal activities was your husband involved in?" Carlton asked. Kristina shrugged.

"I don't know. I never knew." Carlton nodded again.

"All right. Well that's all for now Ma'am." Carlton smiled curtly at her and stuffed his notepad into his coat pocket. The women stood up and walked Carlton to the door.

"Thank you detective, for bringing my little girl back." Kristina smiled warmly at him. Carlton looked past her and over at Mary. She was still chewing on her hair nervously, only she wasn't looking at the ground anymore. She was staring straight at Carlton, an unnerving look on her face. Carlton swallowed hard and felt his stomach twist and roll. All he wanted to do in that moment was run over to his little girl and wrap her in a big hug. He wanted nothing more than to make her stop looking at him like that. He wanted to see her laugh and smile and jump on the bed energetically. Carlton took a deep breath, and did the only thing he could think to do.

He pulled the apartment door shut.

And left Mary behind.

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**Are there Safeway stores in California? **


	11. Chapter 10

**Yup. Chapter ten. Early. Why? Because I am a procrastinator. But wait...then why is this chapter early, you ask? Well, that's because I should be studying for a test, but I am procrastinating with this nonsense. So in conclusion; early chapter, failed test. **

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Carlton sat in front of his computer at the station, typing away furiously. After leaving Mary with her mother and picking up an uneasy nauseous feeling, Carlton had spent the last two hours doing some digging. He had done hardly any investigating on the case due to the fact that he had been spending all his spare time taking care of Mary. After leaving Mrs. Gubbard's house Carlton hadn't been able to shake the feeling in his gut that something was wrong. He rubbed a hand over his tired face and slumped back in his chair.

"What are you doing here?" A voice behind him asked, causing him to jump in alarm. Carlton spun around and came face to face with his partner.

"O'Hara? Why aren't you at the hospital?" Lassiter asked slumping down in his chair tiredly. Juliet smiled weakly.

"Shawn woke up a few more times. He can't remember anything about the case, or about taking the case. The doctors said that the shock of dyeing and being shot and the infection are the cause. "I decided to go home, shower and go back to the hospital later." She explained.

"Hmm…" Carlton turned back to his computer. Not really knowing what to say to that.

"Where's Mary?" Juliet asked after a slight pause. Carlton turned to face her again.

"We found her mother. Sent her back." He explained curtly. Juliet's eyes widened slightly.

"Oh…Well that's good. I'm glad she made it home." She smiled worriedly at Carlton.

"Something's not right though." Carlton informed her, standing up. Juliet watched him cautiously.

"What do you mean?" She asked following him with her eyes as he started to pace.

"Well first of all, after I dropped Mary off at her house, I came back here to try and figure out where Mr. Gubbard could be hiding. Only I didn't find anything about him at all. He had no file." Carlton explained still pacing. Juliet looked at him funny.

"Why wouldn't he have a file? Isn't he a big criminal?" She asked.

"That's what I thought. Then I looked up Mrs. Gubbard, and her file was missing as well. Which is how it should be if they were both in witness protection and had changed their names." Carlton explained. Juliet nodded her head.

"All right, well what's so weird about that?" She asked. Carlton stopped pacing and looked up at her.

"Then I looked up their fake names, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Mr. Gubbard had nothing on him at all. He had no file and no prints in the system. Mrs. Gubbard on the other hand had been arrested." Carlton turned and dug through the papers on his desk.

"What was she arrested for?" Juliet asked, curiosity getting the better of her. Carlton showed her the paper.

"She was arrested after being pulled over. Police pulled her over for speeding. The car she was driving had a gun in it and the gun wasn't in anyone's name." Carlton took the paper and pointed at a name near the bottom.

"The car she was driving belonged to this man. He was intoxicated at the time so she offered to drive him." Carlton set the paper down.

"Steven Ashden? Who's he?" She asked. Carlton grabbed another file off his desk and handed it to O'Hara.

"A nobody. A few speeding tickets and unpaid parking tickets, but other than that there is nothing on him either." Carlton explained watching O'Hara read,

"What about the gun in his car? That's more than just a speeding ticket. What happened with that?" She asked handing him the file. Carlton smiled thinly at her.

"Nothing. There's no mention of it in his file. The gun was wiped clean from it."

"But they forgot to wipe it from Mrs. Gubbard's file?" Juliet asked, her face lighting up.

"Right. " Carlton crossed his arms over his chest and stared at O'Hara triumphantly.

"So you think that Mr. Ashden is involved with the men looking for Mr. Gubbard?" Juliet asked. Carlton's smile faltered. There was still something that he felt he was missing. His partner didn't miss the look on his face.

"You think there's more?" She asked, analyzing his expression. Carlton sighed and flopped down in his chair. He looked at his computer screen, it was getting late. It was nearly Nine O'clock at night.

"I don't know. When I dropped Mary off at her mother's something just didn't seem right." Carlton remembered the way that Mary had chewed on her hair nervously, and the way she had sat quietly. She wasn't her normal energetic self. A sudden realization made Carlton jump to his feet. Juliet jumped at the sudden movement.

"Carlton?" she asked, recognizing the look on his face. It was the look he got when he realized something very important.

"When we went to that cabin I took Mary into the living room and Spencer came in and put his feet on the coffee table." Carlton started to explain. Juliet just nodded, listing with confusion on her face.

"Okay…" she mumbled.

"Mary walked over to him and pushed his feet off the table and told him, 'No'. I think she knew that you aren't allowed to put your feet up on a table because she was taught not to put them up." Carlton explained, thinking out loud.

"That makes sense. If her mother had reprimanded her, or anyone at all, for putting their feet up on the coffee table then Mary would have done the same thing when she saw Shawn putting his feet on the table." Juliet paused "But why is that important." She asked.

"Because, O'Hara. There wasn't a coffee table in Mary's mother's apartment. Also, when we were walking to her apartment, she looked like she had never been around the ocean before. She acted like she had no clue where she was. I just thought she didn't recognize it right away."

"You think that Mrs. Gubbard doesn't really live there?" Juliet asked understanding dawning on her. Carlton nodded vigorously.

"There were no pictures of Mary in that apartment and Mrs. Gubbard said she lost Mary while shopping by the police station. I don't think she would really go all the way to a store near the police station to shop." Carlton groaned and reached for the phone on his desk. "I should have seen it sooner. That house was too clean. There was hardly any furniture." He picked up the phone and dialed a few numbers.

"If that's not Mrs. Gubbard's house, then where does she live? And why would she pretend that was her house in the first place?" Juliet asked worriedly.

"McNab, I need you to get down to Mrs. Gubbard's apartment and bring her in. She and Mary might be in trouble." Carlton gave him Mrs. Gubbard's fake address and then slammed the phone down. He then turned to address O'Hara.

"I don't know, I could be wrong, but maybe the people after her husband got to her somehow. Whatever her reason is, Mary is with her and could be in serious danger." Carlton ground his teeth in frustration. He felt incredibly stupid for leaving Mary behind like that without first getting more information, before doing any real investigating. He had been so distracted with trying to not care about Mary that he had ignored his uneasy feelings when he left her. "Damn it!" He cursed quietly and reached for his coat.

"Where are you going?" Juliet asked following him as he began to walk.

"I'm going to meet up with-"Carlton's sentence was cut off when he ran into the hulking form of a man. Stumbling backwards Carlton glared at the huge man he had just bumped in to, his face turning red with anger. "Damn it! Watch where you're going you idiotic-" The man placed his hands on Carlton's shoulders roughly, which once again cut the irate detective off.

"Are you Detective Lassiter?" the man asked, his voice deep and gravely. He was the hugest man Carlton had ever seen. His head was completely shaved and he had huge broad shoulders and dark brown eyes. There was a long scar going down the left side of his face and he was wearing blue jeans and a black sweater, the sweater was ripped and dirty. Carlton stepped back from the man and glared up at him, which was unusual for the head detective. Carlton was used to being the tallest person in the room.

"I don't have time for this. Step aside." Carlton tried to push past the man but it was like pushing up against a brick wall. Carlton stumbled backwards and crinkled his nose. The man stunk of dirt and body odor. The look on Carlton's face was unadulterated rage. He was about to pull his gun and shoot this huge hulking man. Noticing Carlton's look the man backed off, with his hands raised.

"Whoa whoa, I work for Gubbard. I'm a body guard!" the man spoke quickly, his eyes darting from Juliet to Carlton. Instantly the rage faded from Carlton's face. He looked the man up and down searching for weapons or any other signs that the man was dangerous. Mrs. Gubbard hadn't mentioned any bodyguards, which could mean that she hadn't talked about it for a reason or that this man was actually working for the people that were after Mrs. Gubbard's husband.

"Follow me." He turned to look at O'Hara. She nodded at his look.

"I'll go meet up with Buzz." She informed him rushing to the door. Carlton sighed. He wanted nothing more than to go with Juliet and locate Mary, but if this man had important information on what was going on then he wanted to hear what he had to say, and if he didn't have any important information and it turned out that this man was just wasting his time, then Carlton wanted to arrest him for obstruction. Carlton jerked his head, indicating the man should follow him and led him to an interrogation room.

"Sit down." Carlton snapped. The man walked in and sat down quietly. The chair he lowered his enormous frame into creaked ominously.

"My name is Jonny. Yesterday, during the afternoon, my employer and Brookell, uh that's my employers daughter, went missing." Carlton sat down across the table from the man and sent him a disgusted look. Kristina must have been taken yesterday, which meant that she really had been in trouble when Carlton went to see her earlier.

"What kind of body guard loses the person he's trying to protect?" Carlton patronized the man, he was aware that he was taking his anger out on the body guard but he didn't care. Carlton pulled out his notepad and wondered why Kristina hadn't asked for his help when he had met her in her fake apartment. The huge man's ears turned red with embarrassment.

"Well see, some people came into the house with guns and so I took Brooke. The boss wanted me to get her out of there, get her somewhere safe. So I sent Brooke with Lou, he's the other guard, and went back for the boss." Carlton nodded and took a few notes.

"Go on…" He mumbled distractedly, worrying about Mary and her mother.

"Well when I got back, the boss was running through the woods. I tried to chase him, but he wouldn't stop, then I lost him." Jonny explained folding his hands in his lap. Lassiter frowned and looked up at him in confusion.

"Him? Didn't you say your employer was Mrs. Gubbard?" Lassiter asked staring at Jonny intently. The man looked at Lassiter like he was crazy.

"No! God no!" He shook his head and held up his hands like Lassiter was offensive to look at. "I work for Mr. Gubbard; he hired me and Lou to protect him and his daughter from his Ex-wife and her husband." Lassiter's head snapped up and he stared at Jonny, a serious look on his face. Nobody spoke for at least ten seconds until finally Lassiter stood up abruptly and stormed out of the room. He needed to know where Mary was, and he needed to know now. Pulling out his phone he dialed Buzz's number, knowing that Buzz would have reached the apartment by now. It rang twice before the rookie cop picked up.

"McNab." Buzz answered.

"Did you find her?" Lassiter barked into the phone, gripping it so hard that his knuckles turned white. He hoped he was wrong about the apartment being a fake.

"No sir. The woman was gone, and so was the girl. I checked with the land lord and he says that no one lives in apartment 8b, that no one's lived there for a few months now." Lassiter felt the world around him shatter. He was light headed as he hung up the phone. He had handed Mary over to the bad guys.

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**Short I know. So sorry if I call Mary, Mary when she should be called Brooke. It's hard to keep the name Brooke where it should be when I know her as Mary. Also, tell me if you find any glaringly obvious plot holes. I will try to either explain them away or bow down to your observational prowess…and then I will try to fix it. **


	12. Chapter 11

**Not too much action, but a lot of explaining and answers to your questions. Just point it out if it something dosent make sense please.**

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Lassiter shoved his phone into his pocket violently.

"Damn it!" He yelled punching a concrete wall with enough force to bruise his knuckles. Hissing in pain he waved his hand, "damn it-Damn it-DAMN IT!" He cussed pacing back and forth. Carlton sucked air through his teeth and spun around to storm back into the interrogation room. Shoving through the door Carlton slammed it roughly and sat in front of Jonny.

"You okay?" the huge man asked, leaning back as if worried Carlton was about to jump across the table and attack him.

"What happened that day? Start from the beginning, and if you value your freedom, for the love of god, don't leave anything out. I will arrest you right now for obstruction." Carlton's voice was deadly quiet. The huge man gulped.

"R-Right, well the boss went out two days ago. He left Brooke with the Nannie; her name is Veronica Hernández or something. Anyway, when we got back Veronica was out cold and Brooke was gone. We woke Veronica up and she said that Mr. Gubbard's ex-wife had come in with her husband and had taken Brooke. They left a note that said, 'if you want to see your daughter again then wait in your house for me tomorrow.' Or something like that." Jonny sent Lassiter a nervous glance, but the head detective was in no mood to chat.

"Then what." Lassiter was staring at the man; he wasn't even taking notes anymore. Jonny laughed nervously.

"Well, the boss didn't want to wait. He went out looking for a way to contact his ex-wife right away. It took all night, but we finally tracked down her number, sometime around noon or one, and we called her. She immediately demanded that we meet her at Mr. Gubbard's house. We went there and they had Brooke with them. They handed her over to Veronica, and then…" Jonny shook his head and ran a hand over his bald head.

"Then, I don't know, something went wrong. Veronica was holding the kid and I guess, I don't know what she was thinking, but she just ran for it. Towards the front door or the phone or something and they shot her. She fell, but flipped around so that Brooke landed on top of her." Jonny shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know if she did that on purpose or not. But it's a miracle that Brooke didn't get shot. Anyway, the kid was crying, covered in her nannies blood and hiding under a little table by the door. There were guns shooting all of a sudden and Mr. Gubbard told me and Lou to take the kid and run. We managed to grab her and run out of the house and to the car. Lou drove off with the girl and I stayed back to help the boss." Jonny took a shaky breath and ran a hand over his head again. Lassiter looked away from the man and down at the table.

"For how long were you and Mr. Gubbard separated?" Lassiter's voice was steady, though his hands were shaking horribly.

"It took us about twenty minutes to calm Brooke down and strap her into her car seat. And then when I turned back around I went into the house and began to search around for the boss. Veronica's body was gone when I walked back into the house so I assumed that they had all gone outside. I went out there and saw Mr. Gubbard running down the left side of the house and through the woods. He was being chased by a tall, black man. I assume that he was one of Ms. Gubbard's thugs. So I ran after the two. But I lost them. I looked for them for hours but they were long gone. So I went back to the house, got a car and went to find Lou and the kid." Jonny leaned back in his chair and stared at Lassiter expectantly. Lassiter leaned forward in the chair and locked eyes with the man.

"Tell me something, when you chased after Mr. Gubbard did you ever once see his face?" Lassiter asked. Jonny looked around the room nervously.

"Uh, no." He mumbled.

"Did you shoot at him?" Jonny shook his head.

"No no! I shot at the man chasing him." He explained.

"Did you yell anything?" Lassiter asked. Jonny nodded his giant bald head again,

"Yeah! How did you know that? I yelled at him to wait, and that I had his daughter. I thought he was ignoring me because of the man chasing him." Jonny explained lifting his hands in the air. Lassiter's voice was quiet.

"What happened to Lou?" He asked.

"I don't know. I couldn't find him. I just gave up a few hours ago and came here." Jonny said.

"And, why were these people after your boss?" Lassiter asked, on the verge of going on a murder rampage. Jonny shrugged.

"I dunno. I'm just the hired muscle. I don't know anything about nothing." Lassiter stared hard at him. "Honest!" He yelped.

"One last question, who is Mrs. Gubbard married to currently?" Jonny slumped in his chair.

"She's married to Steven Ashden, not officially though. They wouldn't do it official because there's too much paper work involved." Carlton didn't say a word. He just stood up and left the room quietly. Once he shut the door behind him he pulled out his phone and dialed O'Hara's number.

"Hello Carlton." She answered. "I thought you already spoke to Buzz?"

"We were wrong about everything. About Everything." Lassiter explained the whole story to O'Hara and then waited for her to respond. She was shocked into silence. Clearing her throat she managed to ask,

"Why did Mrs. Gubbard or rather, Mrs. Ashden go to Shawn if she already had Mary?" The junior detective asked.

"She must have had people watching the house and they must have seen Gubbard leave and assumed that he wasn't going to come back. So she went to Spencer to get him found. Only after going to Spencer, Gubbard called her, they met, Mary got away, and Mr. Gubbard went missing. There must have still been people watching the house when we went up there later that afternoon." Lassiter reasoned.

"You think that they got Mr. Gubbard?" Juliet asked. Lassiter could hear the sound of a car door slamming just before Juliet greeted someone.

"That's exactly what I think. Who's there?" Carlton asked walking over to his desk briskly. There was something he wanted to check out.

"How did they know Mary would be at the police station? And it's the CSI guys." Juliet explained distractedly. Carlton sighed and sat down in his chair.

"The only person who knew where Mary was at the time was Lou, the other body guard, and he could have hidden her anywhere. So he must have told them; otherwise it would have taken them a lot longer to track her down. Which means that they probably have him as well." Carlton explained staring at his computer screen.

"Or had him. They probably killed him once he told." Juliet snorted. Her voice was suddenly muffled as if she had pulled the phone away from her ear and had covered it with her hand as she talked with someone. Carlton's eyes widened.

"Your right." He exclaimed, though he knew she wasn't listening. "They probably did kill him." Carlton pulled up files on murders yesterday. There were two. One was a gang shooting in one of the more run down parts of the city and the other was a murder down by the pier. Carlton clicked on the one by the pier.

"Body found, mutilated, male, six foot eight…" Carlton scanned the rest of the file. And found what he was looking for, "Wallet identifies him as a, Louis Hoffer." Carlton stood up and realized that his phone was still pressed to his ear and that Juliet was speaking to him.

"You found Lou's body?" She asked.

"It might be. I'm going down to the pier to see if I can find anything that will tell me where they were keeping him before they killed him." Carlton explained briefly. "Call me if CSI finds anything in the apartment."

"Sure thing Carlton." Juliet agreed and they both hung up. On his way out the door Carlton grabbed a random officer by the arm.

"You. I need you to look up anything you can about Steven Ashden. Especially anything concerning any property that he owns." The rookie stared at Carlton with wide eyes.

"U-uh yes sir. I'll contact you as soon as I find anything sir." The rookie stammered. Every rookie officer in the precinct knew not to piss Carlton off. Lassiter glared at the man and was about to walk away when he remembered Jonny.

"Oh and there's a witness to a crime in interrogation room B. Process him." Carlton spun on his heel and walked away briskly. He wished Buzz were here to find the information he was looking for. If there was one officer he knew he could trust with the task it was Officer McNab. Carlton shook his head. There was nothing he could do about it now, so he stormed out of the building and towards his car. He hurried down the steps and turned right, walked down the sidewalk and past some thick decorative bushes lining the precinct. Carlton made it to his car and then stopped abruptly. The head detective thought back to yesterday when he had found Mary. They had given her chocolate milk and she had insisted on holding his hand. Carlton stepped back from the car and looked up at the station. He had told her that he wasn't going to hold her hand until she washed it. Carlton's eyes fell on the thick bushes decorating the outer walls of the precinct. There had been chocolate milk, and dirt on her hands. Carlton rushed over to bushes. He followed them until they reached the staircase going into the building. There was dirt on the sidewalk where the bushes ended. Carlton pushed back a few branches and peered into the plant. Pulling out his phone he used it as a flashlight.

"So this is where he hid her…" Carlton mumbled to himself. There wasn't a very big opening behind the branches, but it was big enough to hide a four year old. The dirt on the ground also looked like it had been recently disturbed. _It could have been disturbed from a raccoon or something though_, Carlton reasoned. The head detective shone his phone up onto the cement staircase under the bushes and smirked. There were small little blood smudges that looked like they had come from a small child's fingers. Carlton stood up and pocketed his phone. He'd bet his life that those little blood smudges matched Veronica Hernández.

* * *

Lassiter drove through the streets at a dangerously fast speed. With the sirens screaming loudly he weaved around traffic and honked the horn at anyone dumb enough not to move out of his way in time.

"I swear to god I'm about to start shooting people." Carlton hissed yanking the wheel to the left to avoid a car in the middle of the road. He drove past the psych office and was reminded of Shawn. Had he known all along that Mrs. Ashden was the enemy? If he had known, how had he figured it out? Carlton narrowly avoided a man on a bike and took a hard right. After a few more minutes of driving Carlton saw the ocean. Pushing aside the questions buzzing around in his head, he followed it and stopped at the crime scene. It was at the end of a long wooden dock going out into the ocean. Carlton parked the car and walked across the dock, the boards creaked under his weight as he made his way to the end of the pier. He looked at the file that he had brought with him.

"The body was pulled out of the water and drug up here…" Carlton looked over the edge of the pier, there was no railing but the water was a good four feet below. Some concerned citizens had seen the body and called the police, who had then come down to the pier and had drug the body up onto the dock. Carlton turned away from the water and re-examined the file.

"The body was in the water since yesterday night blah blah blah, extreme trauma blah blah..." Carlton pressed his lips together and looked around. There was nothing here. This wasn't even where the man had been murdered. Carlton looked around some more, spinning in a circle slowly, there were no boats in the ocean in front of him, a huge saw mill to his right and on his left there were a bunch of old warehouses that housed boats, cars and anything else that people paid to have stored. Carlton turned around to face the city, the warehouses, the Sawmill, if those weren't enough; there was also the huge city behind him. Mary could be in anyone of those buildings, in anyone of those houses, in any basement, cellar, living room, garage, storage room. Carlton's phone rang suddenly; he dug it out of his pocket, desperately hoping for some answers.

"Detective Lassiter." Lassiter barked angrily. An unfamiliar voice stuttered timidly on the other end.

"Uh-uh I looked up that man. He owns a ton of property down in Texas, but nothing up here. It says he's living in Texas currently and that he hasn't been out of the state in years. That's all there is on him." It was the random rookie from the precinct. He didn't want to report bad news to the head detective, and for good reason. Carlton was not known for his patience. To prove it Carlton hung up on the man abruptly. He ground his teeth and was about to throw his phone into the ocean angrily when it rung once again. Carlton answered it quickly.

"What?" He yelled.

"We found something Carlton." It was Juliet, and she sounded excited. Lassiter felt his heart beat faster.

"Well, spit it out?" Lassiter stormed away from the edge of the dock and headed back to his car.

"CSI found saw dust." Juliet explained. Carlton's stopped walking abruptly and looked up towards the saw mill to his left. He smirked crookedly.

"Guess what I'm looking at." Carlton asked resuming the walk to his car.

"A crime scene?" Juliet guessed.

"Wrong. A Sawmill. Meet me here with back up. Come in silent. Call me when you're in position. I'm going in to find Mary." Carlton hung up the phone before Juliet could tell him to wait for backup and then he put his phone on vibrate. Detective Lassiter wasn't one to break the rules, but if it meant getting Mary back, he would break every rule in the book, and then use the book to break the bones of anyone who got in his way.

* * *

**Lol…you like that last line? It sounded like something lame that Carlton would say…or maybe its just something lame that I would say. Probably the latter. **


	13. Chapter 12

**IMPORTANT NOTICE:**

** I've realized that I left out a chapter. It doesnt really add anything to the story (except character development between Lassie and Mary!) but I did realized that I left it out and I have to go add it back in, Im naming it chapter, 6.5 (because its between 6 and seven...) so if you havent read that..thats there now. Sorry about that.. I feel shame. **

**An explanation for why this took so long to update and why I suck at posting in order can be found at the bottom of this chapter.**

**Thank you kindly.**

* * *

The sawmill was a huge old building that looked like it hardly ever ran. If it wasn't for the logs and the layers of sawdust coating everything Carlton would have suspected that it really wasn't a functioning building. Though the sawmill looked like it had been built in the 1800's the chain link fence surrounding the building looked brand new. So did the thick locks on the front gate. Carlton parked his car away from the building and behind a dumpster so that it wouldn't be spotted. As long as no one went looking for it, it wouldn't be found. He ran along the side of the fence looking for the best place to sneak in. There was nobody outside the building, and with night falling quickly Carlton was sure that no one would be able to look out the buildings dirty windows and see him. None the less, he moved quickly and moved quietly so as not to attract attention. Finally deciding he had put adequate distance between himself and the entrance, Carlton crouched down on one knee close to the fence. Using the giant metal clippers he had brought with him, Carlton cut a hole in the fence big enough for him to squeeze through. Taking the bolt cutters with him, just in case he encountered more locks, Carlton rushed towards the building. Pressing up against a wall he walked a short distance until he found another door. Noticing there was no lock on the door; Carlton threw the bulky cutters to the ground and snuck in. The interior of the building looked just as rundown as the exterior. Huge conveyer belts and wood chippers filled the large room he was standing in. there were also tons of huge shipping boxes stacked up on top of each other, providing Carlton with ample places to hide. Pulling out his gun Carlton crept deeper into the room and looked around silently. There was no one in the room that he could see and the dust hanging in the air made him blink rapidly. He was beginning to wonder if this building was even the right place when suddenly a voice directly in front of him caused him to jump and press up against one of the many shipping containers. The room he had snuck into was so poorly lit that the shadows the boxes cast hid him perfectly.

"And so we have the girl?" the deep voice asked sounding far away. There was a pause and then a female voice, speaking so quietly Carlton could hardly hear it, responded,

"Yes. We have her, but he still refuses to talk. He thinks were going to kill the girl once we have the information we need." There was a slight pause from the two speakers and then a low sigh from the male speaker.

"That will never do. I know she's your daughter, but if Mr. Gubbard doesn't tell us where the money is, we are going to have to show him that we mean business." The man had a heavy Southern accent, an accent that usually came from someone who had spent most of their life in Texas. Resisting the urge to jump out and start shooting, Carlton waited until the sound of the duos footsteps and conversation faded away. Waiting about a minute to make sure the coast was clear, Carlton slipped out of the shadows and followed after the slowly fading sounds. Carlton followed them to a long hallway. He paused before entering the hallway, and wondered if he was doing the right thing by going in after Mary with no back up. Shaking his doubts away, Carlton stepped forward slowly. The hallway was dimly lit with buzzing flickering lights that made everything in the hall look yellow, and dirty. Carlton walked for a while, no longer able to hear the voices, and soon the head detective came up to a door on his right. The door was plain and dirty, there was absolutely nothing extraordinary about it. There were no markings or indications of what could be inside. He paused and looked up and down the hallway before pressing his ear up against the metal frame to listen for any noises. A sound caught his attention, but it wasn't coming from inside the room, it came from down the hallway. Carlton's heart pounded roughly in his chest as he realized that there were people walking toward him. Swallowing the lump in his throat Carlton took his chances and pushed open the door. Rushing inside he shut the door as quietly as possible and stood in pitch blackness, listening intently for noises outside the door. Heavy footsteps clunked loudly towards the door. Looking down Carlton watched as a shadow made its way across the crack in the bottom of the door. The shadow stopped abruptly and Carlton held his breath in anticipation. After what seemed like an eternity there was a loud sigh and the person on the other side of the door walked away. Carlton let out a shaky breath and felt all the blood rush to his head. He stumbled backwards and ran a shaking hand over his head.

_That was close._

He thought to himself, wondering if it was safe to come out of the dark room he was hiding in. He placed his hand on the door knob just as a quiet whimpering noise behind him made freeze in place. Carlton turned around slowly. He stared into the dark room, wishing there was a window or some kind of light. There wasn't though, there was only darkness. Carlton frowned when a quiet dragging noise and the rattling of chains reached his ears. He strained his eyes hard and looked all over the room waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness in vain. When no shape or contour appeared, Carlton reached into his pocket slowly and pulled out his phone. As he had done earlier outside the station, he used it as a flash light to poorly illuminate the dank room. What the light showed him made him gasp and stare in muted horror.

"Mary?" the word slipped from his lips in barley more than a whisper, and yet at the sound of the name the little girls head snapped up in surprise. She was sitting on a blanket, her hands bound behind her back and her mouth gagged with a dirty red rag. Her face was covered in dirt and tear tracks and Carlton could just make out a bruise beginning to form on the left side of her face. Carlton stumbled forward drunkenly, feeling his heart shatter when the girl in front of him cried quietly and shied away from him. Keeling in front of her Carlton set his gun on the ground carelessly.

"Mary, it's me." He mumbled reaching out to her, but hesitating, too afraid to touch her. The little girl looked up at him sadly, her blue eyes sparkling with tears in his phones dim light. She sniffled loudly and nodded at him. Carlton gulped and began to reach forward but paused when he realized that he had missed something. A very important something. There was a thick metal collar around Mary's neck. A heavy chain attached to the wall behind her was connected to the collar around the girl's neck. She was chained to the wall, and the only way to get her out would be to find a key. Carlton swallowed sickly and continued to reach behind the girl to untie the gag. He messed with the knot and then paused when a thought occurred to him. He looked into Mary's face,

"Hey." He whispered quietly, drawing the toddler's attention. She looked at him wearily. "Listen to me little Mary. I'm going to take this off of you, but you need to be quiet or else those bad men will come back. Okay?" Carlton paused, but Mary didn't respond. She just stared at him dully until Carlton couldn't take it anymore. He had to get that gag off of her. Pulling it off of her face he threw it to the ground in disgust and waited for her to start crying or something. Instead she just sniffled loudly and hiccuped once before saying,

"Mommy bad." Carlton barked out a harsh laugh and placed his hand on the little girls head. Shaking out of his stupor Carlton picked his gun up off the ground, slightly embarrassed that he had thrown it there in the first place, and stood up. As soon as he stood Mary made a fearful noise and pushed herself up off the ground as best she could with her hands bound behind her back.

"I'm not leaving you little one. I'm just…" Carlton mumbled and swept the phone around the room distractedly. "Looking for a key to your collar or something." Carlton informed her looking down at the little child. She was swaying on her feet unsteadily and Carlton wondered worriedly if she had a concussion. Pushing the thought aside, knowing it would do nothing but toss him into a homicidal rage; Carlton gave up on the key and stared at Mary. The little girl was stared back up at him with wide trusting eyes. Carlton sighed, he hadn't really thought the key would have been in here, but he had hoped.

"I want to go home now please." Mary suddenly mumbled her face set in a serious pout. Carlton cringed.

"N-not yet. First we have to find the key to your collar." He informed her, tapping the collar around her neck. He saw the tantrum starting to form before it even happened.

"No! Go home now!" She cried loudly stomping her foot and wiggling her shoulders. Carlton regarded her with an unhappy look.

"Sit down here, I'll be right back. And if you make noise your mom will come in and see what's wrong. You don't want that do you?" He whispering frantically, worried that someone outside the room had heard her yell. Mary took a deep breath, her lip trembling and sat down on the blanket quietly.

"Mommy bad." She mumbled looking away from Carlton. Carlton smiled sadly at her, reminded of the time she had pouted unhappily in his kitchen after being yelled at for drawing on his face. Carlton took a deep breath and walked toward the door, feeling guilty about leaving Mary alone in the dark, even though there wasn't much he could do about it. Pulling open the door he was startled to come face to face with a short broad shouldered man in a white cowboy hat, holding a very large shotgun. The man smiled at him and tipped his hat. Carlton stumbled backwards into the room.

"Howdy." The man greeted, showing off his gleaming white teeth. He had tanned skin and was wearing snake skin boots, blue jeans, and a black button down shirt. He looked like some cliché cowboy from a movie. Two relatively big brutish men stood behind him silently, glaring at Carlton menacingly. Carlton glared daggers at all of them and made a move to raise his gun. The cowboy tsked at Carlton and moved the gun barrel up so that it was in Carlton's face.

"ah ah ah. I wouldn't do that if you don't wanna get shot." The man informed Carlton smiling brightly. Carlton sneered at the man and set his gun on the ground slowly. Raising his hands he stared at the man, who he assumed was Steven Ashden, blankly.

"You won't get away with this." Carlton informed him, racking his brain for any useful ideas to get him out of this mess. He came up blank. Steven only smiled.

"I reckon I don't know what you are talking about." Ashden turned his head, but kept his eyes on Carlton. "Boys..." He said, addressing his lackeys. "Restrain him." Ashden stepped to the side and let the knuckle daggers stomp forward after Carlton. Lassiter reached for his gun, but was too slow. One of the men reached back and slammed a fist into Carlton's gut, causing the head detective to double over in pain. He could hear Mary start to cry behind him, but had no time to react to anything before the other brute grabbed Lassiter gun off the ground and pointed it at the head detective.

"Walk." The man hissed, jerking the gun a bit to illustrate that Carlton should walk out the door or be shot. Ignoring Mary's crying Carlton stood up straight and walked out the door into the poorly lit hallway. He knew he just had to stall for time until his partner showed up with the cavalry. The men all walked in a line, with Ashden in the lead, followed by a lackey, Carlton and then another lackey.

"So what brings you round these parts?" Ashden asked from his lead position in the group. Carlton glared at the man and refrained from calling him every dirty name he could think of, instead he remained quiet. The less they knew the better. And the more time they would spend trying to figure out what he wanted and how much he knew. Which, Carlton admitted, wasn't very much. He had only known that Mary was here.

"Not a talkative one are you?" Ashden finally relented, after a brief silent pause. They walked for a little bit more, passing random boxes full of sawdust and even one of those wheelie things that you put your laundry in. Carlton wondered why they would have a laundry basket, but before he could dwell on the random thought for too long, the cowboy stepped in front of another unremarkable door and pushed it open. The two lackeys pushed Carlton forward and into the room. The room was just as windowless and bare as the room he had found Mary in; only this one had a low hanging, buzzing light. Once inside the room Carlton stared in poorly concealed shock. Kristina, Mary's mother, was standing next to a man tied to a chair. The man was bleeding and breathing heavily, his left eye was swollen shut and he didn't even seem to register that anyone had entered the room. Carlton looked up at Kristina with undisguised disgust, assuming that the baseball bat she held in her hand was the reason for the man's poor condition. Kristina stared in confusion when she saw Carlton and dropped the bat.

"Detective?" She blinked a few times in surprise, staring at him with wide eyes. She popped her hip out to the side and placed a hand on it as she stared at him in contemplation.

"You know this man dear?" Steven asked from outside the doorway. Kristina nodded her head a few times.

"Sure do! He's the detective that found my baby." She smiled a slightly manic smile that turned her soft and beautiful face ugly. "Was kind enough to bring her back to me too." She threw back her head, her long curls falling around her body, and laughed loudly; the sound was high pitched and raised Goosebumps on Carlton's arms. As abruptly as she started laughing she stopped.

"Where do you want him?" One of the lackeys asked, unphased by the display of lunacy in front of him. Kristina flicked a long curl over her shoulder.

"Over there Hun." She instructed pointing to a chair, just like the one the other man was tied to. The chair was wooden and had decorative bars on the back of it; it looked like a regular dining room table chair. The two men grabbed Carlton's arms and drug him over to the chair. Carlton struggled as best he could, but he really had no idea what he would have done if he had managed to free himself. Shoving him into the chair they pulled his arms behind his back and handcuffed him through the bars. Carlton struggled violently and earned a strong back hand from one of the men. Blood filled his mouth as he sat dazed in the chair, trying to shake off the blow.

"Anything else?" One of the lackeys grumbled stepping back. Kristina smiled and picked the bat up off the floor.

"No, that will do. Dearest?" She turned and addressed Ashden who was watching everything with a neutral expression, like he watched this kind of thing every day. Carlton swallowed hard, maybe he did. "Why is this man in my chair?" Kristina asked blinking innocently. Despite the bloody bat in her hands, Her beautiful face almost made Carlton believe that there was no way such a soft looking person could torture another human with a baseball bat.

"I need to know why he's here, and how much he knows." Ashden informed her, stepping aside to let his lackeys step out into the hallway. "Oh!" Ashden stepped into the room and addressed the bleeding man. "Gubbard." He snapped. The bleeding man looked up in surprise, his face swollen and bruised. Carlton bit the inside of his cheek. So this was Mr. Gubbard. The man they had thought was the bad guy.

"What?" Gubbard snapped back, though the intensity of his anger was dampened a bit by his ragged breathing. As if realizing he wasn't sounding as intimidating as he wanted, he leaned forward and spat blood at Ashden. Ashden frowned unhappily.

"If you don't tell us where the money is, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take drastic measures. As you know, I have your daughter." Ashden sighed deeply and started to close the door. "I also have plenty of men working for me who, let's just say, are prohibited to be around children by the authorities." he paused slightly "I'd hate for one of those men to get ahold of your little girl." Ashden informed him blandly. Carlton stared at the man, pushing down the lump of bile rising in his throat. If he had his gun on him at this moment, Carlton was absolutely positive that he would shoot Ashden in the head, with no hesitation. No one said a word, and so Ashden took that as his sign to leave. He closed the door with a quiet click and there was a beat of silence before Kristina turned away from the door and faced her two victims. She smirked at Lassiter, a malicious glint in her eye. Sauntering over to the head detective she swung her bat around in a slow circle. Lassiter wondered how it didn't fly from her hands, considering it was slick with blood.

"So." She started still swinging her bat. "Detective Lassiter? Was it?" She paused in front of him and stared down at his face. "Why don't you just tell me why you're here?" She asked smiling sweetly. Carlton glared at her.

"You know why I'm here, you crazy bitch. So let's cut the crap." Carlton pulled on his hand cuffs and realized that the chair he was cuffed to wasn't all that stable. It was actually relatively wobbly all over. One too many hits with a bat, he supposed. Kristina frowned like she had been deeply offended by his remark.

"That was-"She lifted the bat and swung, aiming for his ribs, yelling the word "RUDE!" just as the bat smashed into Carlton's side. The head detective couldn't stop the pained scream from clawing its way out of his throat when the bat made contact. Panting heavily he doubled over and tried not to focus on the fire burning his side. He was sure he had heard something crack. Suddenly he heard Kristina begin to laugh; he looked up at her weakly, his eyes half lidded with pain.

"Y-you're insane." He hissed watching her swing the bat in a circle menacingly. She smiled sweetly again and then lifted the bat slowly. Carlton watched her worriedly, afraid to say anything else. Kristina placed the bat on his right shoulder gently. Carlton flinched away when she gently tapped his shoulder a few times with it.

"Let's break that collar bone. Hmm?" She smiled at him, crinkling her nose slightly and lifted the bat high into the air above her head. Carlton felt his heart stop; he really didn't want his collar bone broken. Panicking slightly, Carlton lunged forward gracelessly, the chair attached to his back making the movement awkward, and head-butted Kristina in the stomach. He used all the strength he could muster, which wasn't much considering he had been sitting and tied to a chair, but with his height advantage it was enough to knock the psychotic women on her butt. Landing with a loud, 'Ooff!" the bat flew from Kristina's hand and rolled across the room. Following through with his unplanned attack Carlton rushed forward and kneed the women in the face. Blood sprayed from her now broken nose as she fell to the ground. Carlton stumbled over the women's now unconscious body awkwardly. The chair he was chained to was really making it extremely hard to move. Turning slowly so that he was facing Mr. Gubbard. Lassiter sat back down, his ribcage screaming at him.

"Are you Larry Gubbard?" Lassiter asked, panting heavily. Gubbard stared wide eyed at Lassiter and then nodded once. Dumbfounded by what he had just seen.

"Who are you?" The man finally asked. Squirming in his chair a bit. Lassiter sighed.

"I am Detective Lassiter with the SBPD. Where are the keys to these handcuffs?" The head detective asked looking around the room.

"Uh...uh, with Ashden." Gubbard answered glancing down at his wife. "You shouldn't have done that." He mumbled after a brief pause. Carlton stopped pulling on his hand cuffs and looked up at Gubbard in confusion.

"Why the hell not?" Carlton snapped at him wiggling in the unsteady chair. Maybe he could break it or something. Gubbard coughed up a rather unhealthy looking glob of blood before responding.

"When she wakes up she is going to be pissed and tell her husband. Then…" Gubbard shuddered like he was about to vomit. "Then my daughter…" Lassiter ground his teeth.

"Do you know where the keys to your daughter are?" He asked only because he didn't want Gubbard to have a panic attack or vomit or something else like that. He expected the keys for Mary's chains were also with Ashden.

"She has them." Gubbard answered, taking deep breaths. He reminded Lassiter of Gus when the pharmaceutical salesman did Lamaze breathing.

"And what- wait what?" Carlton stopped pulling on a particularly loose bar on his chair and stared at Gubbard in confusion. She has the keys to her daughters hand cuffs?" He asked incredulously. Gubbard nodded his head slowly, a drop of sweat rolling down his puffy face. Gubbard shuddered and wheezed out a breath.

"Yeah, she's supposed to be torturing me for information. Sometimes she brings our daughter in here, and so she has the keys…" Gubbard explained looking down at the ground, his body shuddering violently. Lassiter didn't take his eyes off of Gubbard face.

"What do they want with you?" He asked wondering what kind of trouble this man was involved in. Gubbard eyed Lassiter suspiciously, but answered the question anyway,

"I married my wife a few years ago, I had no idea that she was into illegal… things." He sighed and Carlton could tell that marrying Kristina had been a mistake Gubbard had never stopped regretting. "The day Kristina's water broke, I had been panicking and digging through her closet to find the duffel bag we had made for when she had to go to the hospital. I found a duffel bag. Only it wasn't the overnight bag we had made. It was full of money. Tons of money. At least one million dollars." Gubbard explained. Lassiter stared in shock at the bleeding man.

"One million?" He gasped, realizing that this wasn't just some small time gang stuff, like he had initially thought. This was big stuff. Million dollar stuff.

"Yeah." Gubbard mumbled, shuddering violently again. "It turns out that she had only married me officially as a front for anyone curious enough to dig into her life. She was really with Ashden; they were just using my face. As soon as Brooke was born I took her and went to the police where I put us in witness protection." Gubbard doubled over in his chair as if he was experiencing extreme pain, which he probably was.

"What happened to the money?" Carlton asked glancing down at Kristina. The woman was still out cold.

"I gave it to the feds!" Gubbard answered. Carlton stared at the man blankly. Gubbard looked around the room nervously. "Okay, I took five hundred thousand of it and hid it." He relented. "But none of that matters. They're about to give up on me and kill me. Then they'll kill you and then do god knows what with my daughter." Gubbard slumped over in his chair and stared at the ground, blood and sweat dripping down the tip of his crooked nose. Lassiter frowned at the man sympathetically. They had really done a number on him.

"We are not going to get killed." He finally mumbled, dragging his eyes away from Gubbard. There was one thing he had yet to try while getting his handcuffs off. Pushing himself up he stood and took a deep breath. This was really going to hurt, and there was no guarantee that he was going to even succeed at breaking free. Shaking his head Lassiter ran backwards and slammed up against a wall, crushing his hands and arms, but succeeding in cracking the chair. Hissing in pain Lassiter stumbled forward and sat back down. Gubbard looked at him wearily.

"What are you doing?" he asked .Lassiter grimaced up at him and pulled on the chairs bars and hard as he could. The crack he had just created gave way and broke, freeing Lassiter's hands. The head detective stumbled out of the chair and sat on the ground quickly. With an incredible amount of difficulty and pain Lassiter managed to pull his arms under his body so that they were in front of him. His hands were red and a few of his knuckles were bleeding but other than that, he didn't feel any pain. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Even the throbbing in his side seemed to resided to a dull ache. Which was probably a bad thing.

"I'm getting out of here." Lassiter snapped at him glancing up briefly. "What are YOU doing?" The head detective stood up and wobbled on his feet unsteadily. He walked over to Kristina's fallen form and looked it over.

"Where are the keys?" he mumbled to himself. Gubbard took it upon himself to answer though.

"She wears them around her neck." He whispered. He sounded like he was about to pass out, Gubbard's breathing had been heavy before, but now it was accompanied by a wet wheezing sound. Lassiter looked up at the man quickly.

"Don't pass out Gubbard. You might not wake up." Lassiter informed him bluntly. Finding the chain around the woman's neck and ripping it off none too gently. Carlton stuffed the keys into his pockets. "Gubbard?" He mumbled looking up at the man. His chin was resting on his chest and he looked like he was asleep. Lassiter stood up as quickly as his burning side would allow and rushed over to Gubbard.

"Hey." Lassiter reached up with his cuffed hands and smacked the man's face. He didn't move. He smacked him a little harder. Still, there was no response. His brows furrowed in confusion.

"Gubbard? Larry?" Lassiter reached up and grabbed the man's neck, feeling for a pulse. There wasn't one. Mr. Gubbard was dead.

* * *

**I am so sorry about how long this took me to update! I really never meant for this to happen. Actually, this has been written out for a really long time. Let me just tell you the tale of how this chapter came to be posted to the internet.**

**I was on a plane, heading home from Disney land and playing Minecraft. When the stewardess lady walks up to me and tells me, "Ay. You cant be using that wireless mouse on this aircraft." SO I turn it off and im sitting there like what the frick am I supposed to do now? I decide to go read some of the old fanfictions that ive written, and what do I find, hidden in one of my many unpublished fanfic folders? THE REST OF THIS STORY THAT I NEVER POSTED!**

**So I get home and I go onto my profile and im looking at this story, going through the chapters I've already posted and I notice that something is just not quiet right! Thats when I notice that I have forgotten the fillery chapter that I wrote between Lassie and Mary! Those two had MOMENTS in that chapter AND I LEFT IT OUT! **

**So I went back, added it in and posted this chapter. There are a few more chapters after this one as well. I will post them within the week. **

**Thank you all for reading and im sorry about being a loser face. **


	14. Chapter 13

Lassiter removed his hand slowly and stared at Gubbard's slumped over form. He couldn't believe the man had just died. Right in front of him. One moment he had been talking, the next he had been dead. Lassiter looked away from the corpse uncomfortably. His eyes fell on the bat laying against the wall. It was covered with blood. Kristina was also splattered with small flecks of blood. Carlton breathed deeply, feeling sick. There was just so much blood in the room, it was like he was standing in the middle of a horror film. There was even some blood on the walls behind Gubbard's body. Carlton stumbled backwards. He had to get out of that room. Rushing to the door he pushed it open and barged into the hallway recklessly. It was one thing to investigate a bloody murder scene, but he was close to this. Too close. That blood in the room had almost been _his_ blood all over the walls and floors. Carlton took a deep breath to still his rapidly beating heart and regained his composure, this was absolutely no time to panic, not when he had Mary to look after. Mary. The little girl was probably still trapped in the black room, alone and afraid. Carlton looked up and down the hallway quickly, luckily no one was in sight and no one had seen his panicked dash into the hall. Carlton took a deep breath.

"Keep it together…" He whispered to himself, pressing a hand against his sore side. Pain rippled throughout his body at the light touch. He hissed through his teeth and choose to ignore the pain in hopes that it would go away. He began to walk down the hallway quickly, wincing with every step and anxious to get back to Mary. He finally had a way to get her loose and he was determined to get her out of there as quickly as possible. Finding the correct door with little difficulty, Carlton pushed inside and shut the door quietly, careful not to make any noise that would attract attention. He leaned up against the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep shaky breath. He didn't have his gun, but he was relatively confident that he could get Mary out of the building with no problems. Standing up straight he rushed to the back of the room, going from memory, and pulled out his phone. Taking a deep breath he shone the phone down on Mary, the little toddler was staring up at him silently, it was slightly unnerving. Crouching down low Carlton set the phone on the ground and dug around in his pocket for the key he had taken from Kristina. Pulling it out Carlton reached over for Mary. The little girl pressed up against the wall.

"Nooo!" She whined shaking her head. Carlton's shoulders slumped in exasperation. He picked up his phone and shone it on his face.

"Mary, its me again! Knock that off. I'm trying to save you." Carlton hissed at her, setting the phone back onto the ground. Mary looked at Carlton excitedly.

"We're going home?" She asked wiggling more then ever. Carlton groaned in frustration and resisted the urge to shake the child. Taking a calming breath he looked over at Mary sharply.

"Yes. Now hold still or they might come back and bludgeon us to death with a bat." Carlton snapped feeling around her neck for the lock attaching the chain to the collar. Mary stopped moving and let Carlton fumble with the lock in the dark.

"Mommy's bat scary." Mary whispered just as Carlton heard the lock around her neck click. He nodded and paused. Mary must have been in that room with her father. Carlton wondered how much she had seen in that room. He sighed sickly and reached behind the child to undo her handcuffs.

"Yeah, and it hurts too." He mumbled to himself, his side still aching, despite his best attempts to ignore it. He fumbled with the key and after much cursing was finally able to free Mary of the hand cuffs around her tiny wrists. Lifting the cuffs up he inspected them. They weren't regular hand cuffs, they were thick and archaic, matching the collar that had been around the girls neck. Carlton sighed in resignation and tossed them aside. The cuffs weren't the same as the ones he was wearing. The key wouldn't work on him. Grabbing Mary's hand and picking up his phone he helped the little girl stand. Once she was standing he pushed her to the door, unable to carry her or hold her hand due to the cuffs locking his arms in front of him. They reached the door and Mary stopped walking abruptly. Carlton was about push her forward to keep her moving but she turned and spoke before he could.

"You saveded my Daddy too?" She questioned. Carlton was glad he couldn't see her face in the dark.

"Listen, I cant pick you up or hold your hand. Once I open this door you need to follow me and do exactly what I say." Carlton placed a hand on the door knob and waited for Mary to respond.

"My. Daddy!" She snapped back at him. Carlton sighed, this was not the response he had wanted. Though it was what he had been suspecting from the little child.

"Mary. Your father told me to save you. He told me to tell you that you have to listen to me. Okay?" Carlton asked shining his light on Mary's face. The little girl squinted in the light but finally relented, an unhappy pout on her face. She mumbled something that Carlton didn't understand, but the head detective didn't have time to wait around and ask her to repeat herself. Pushing open the door slowly he held onto the back of Mary's collar, to stop her from running out into the open, and peeked out into the hallway. For a moment the head detective was worried that Mr. Ashden would reappear and separate him from Mary, but the coast was clear and so Carlton Pushed the door open all the way and shoved Mary into the hallway unceremoniously. She whined unhappily at being pushed but walked in front of Carlton like he had instructed her to do. They hadn't even taken ten steps when Carlton heard voices drift down the hallway that lead to the exit. He stopped dead in his tracks, and grabbed the back of Mary's collar to stop her as well. She apparently heard the other people as well because she looked up at Carlton with wide eyes, the bruise on her face standing out sharply in the hallways harsh florescent light.

"Uh-ohh." She said none to quietly. Lassiter shushed her and bit the inside of his cheek. He couldn't pick her up, his hands were too close together to hold her adequately and he couldn't hold her hand otherwise he would end up running sideways. Carlton sighed deeply. Maybe getting the girl out of the building wasn't going to be as easy as he initially thought. Shaking his head he turned and began walking in the opposite direction quickly, once again pushing Mary in front of him.

"We cant let those guys catch us okay? Or were probably going to get murdered." Carlton informed her, picking up his pace and making Mary walk faster as well.

"Murber?" Mary repeated, her tone questioning. Carlton nodded and stopped walking abruptly. He smiled slightly. He had forgotten that on the walk to Mr. Gubbard's room he had seen a laundry basket with wheels. He stared at the basket, now sitting innocently in front of him, how many times had he seen people in movies hop inside one and go for a joy ride? Pushing Mary over to it he saw that the basket was full of sawdust. He rolled his eyes, not really surprised. There was sawdust everywhere here anyway.

"C'mer." Carlton reached out for Mary and picked her up as best as he could with the handcuffs restricting his movements. Setting her inside the laundry basket he told her to sit down. She flopped down onto the sawdust and grabbed a handful of it.

"Don't play in that. Just sit still." Carlton instructed her, pushing the cart forward. Mary threw the sawdust just as Carlton began to run. the dust flew back into Mary's face and made the little girl sneeze loudly. Carlton cringed at the noise and pushed the cart harder. Running as fast as he could. He ran past more rooms, including the one that Mary's parents were in, ignoring the fact that Mary was laughing and giggling loudly. He figured he was being so conspicuous anyway, he might as well let the little girl enjoy the ride. Lassiter finally made it to the end of the hallway, though he didn't dare stop running. The main reason being he had just run past a huge glass window. A well lit, plush looking office sat behind the window and inside that office, sat Mr. Steven Ashden. Carlton had locked eyes with the incredulous looking man as he ran past the window. The hallway opened up into another huge open space. There were more boxes full of sawdust here, as well as stacks and stacks of plywood and huge labyrinth of old storage units. Carlton raced over to one of the storage units and hid behind it, panting heavily.

"Again again!" Mary jumped up and threw saw dust into the air happily. It rained down onto the little girl, getting in her hair and causing her to sneeze again. Carlton put a hand against her mouth and shushed her harshly.

"Be quiet! They're looking for us." Carlton pulled her out of the basket and dragged her over to the front of one of another storage unit, going deeper into the maze. Swallowing lung fulls of air he attempted to get his breathing under control while also attempting to keep Mary quiet. The little girl was whining slightly and pulling at her hair.

"itchhhhyy!" she whined pulling a piece of saw dust off of the top of her head. Carlton gave an exasperated sigh and pulled Mary closer to himself.

"You need to be quiet now. The men are looking for us. Okay?" Carlton didn't wait for her to respond. Instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Thankful that no one had taken it from him. Now that he finally had Mary and the two of them were out of immediate danger, it was time to call for back up. Pressing his phone to his ear and holding it with his shoulder, Carlton reached down with his hands and brushed some sawdust off of Mary's back as he listened to his phone ring. After the third ring, Juliet's worried voice greeted him

"Carlton! Whats going on are you all right? Did you find Mary? Where are you?" Carlton frowned when he heard other voices in the background, identifying one as Shawn. Ignoring the slightly irritated feeling he got from the mere thought of the younger man Carlton responded.

"I've got Mary. We're both fine. Ashden has us pinned down in a saw-" Carlton cut off abruptly at the quiet sound of shuffling feet. He jumped up, dropping his phone and yanking Mary with him roughly just as two men whirled around the left side of the storage unit the two had been hiding behind. Running clumsily and dragging Mary behind him Carlton swallowed thickly as the two dodged between storage units.

"Shit shit _shit." _Carlton looked around the room, panic rising up in his chest and clogging his throat. There was no where for him to go that wasn't guarded by Ashdens men. Stumbling into another storage unit Lassiter crouched down low and pulled Mary towards him. The little girl was shaking and crying quietly, Carlton reached out for her and pulled her into a tight embrace. She pressed her dirty face into his shirt, wiping snot and tears onto his suit.

"Hey, little one." He pulled her away from him and looked at her at arms length. She looked back at him through wet eyelashes.

"Go home." She sniffled wetly. Carlton placed a hand on the top of her head.

"Soon. But first we have to find a way out of this building." Carlton smiled reassuringly at her. Or he tried to appear reassuring, it came out more as a pained grimace than anything.

"No..." Mary shook her head slowly and pulled on Carlton's arm shaking it.

"Hey now! I cant do this without you. You need to be brave. You think you can, uh, help me? Find an exit?" Carlton asked her. Mary shrugged a shoulder slightly and nodded, the corner of her mouth turning up in a little smile.

"Okay." She grumbled, still sounding on the verge of crying. Carlton let out a slow breath and stood up, wincing at the pain it caused him.

"Follow me." He whispered. He could hear voices, but there were so many of them that he couldn't pinpoint where exactly they were coming from. With Mary behind him, clinging to his pant leg Carlton crept along as quietly as he could. The storage units were packed closely together. It made it easy for them to hide amongst the units, but the same went for anyone else lurking within the maze like structure. Carlton rounded another corner, holding his breath in anticipation, each unknown turn equally as nerve wracking. His heart skipped a beat when he realized that they had reached the outside of the storage units. Before him lay wide open space and even more beautifully, an old rusted door with a broken red exit sign. Carlton stumbled backwards away from the opening, his heart thumping.

"Mary. This is really important." Carlton turned on his heel and crouched down in front of Mary, one knee on the ground. The little girl watched him expectantly.

"Out?" she asked curiously, looking out into the empty space in front of them.

"Yeah. That's right. Out. But I'm going to go out there first and when I say, 'now' I want you to run as fast as you can to me. All right?"

"Aright." Mary nodded excitedly and wiped at her runny nose. Carlton stared at her.

"I mean it. You do NOT come out of hiding unless I tell you to. And when I say so, you run as fast as you can. Straight towards me." He grabbed her shoulders. "As fast as you can, straight to me." Mary nodded and looked towards the exit door.

"Mary, what did I just tell you?" Carlton grumbled, feeling like he was talking to a rock. Mary made a little popping noise with her mouth and looked up, placing her finger on her chin,

"Uhm, you said to not to come out of-out of the hiding and run as fastest as I can when lassie says, Now." She reiterated. Carlton sighed at her child gibberish.

"Good. Now stay here." Standing up Carlton pressed up against the storage unit and crept to the edge of it. Leaning forward he craned his neck as best as he could, the coast appeared to be clear, but he couldn't fully tell if someone was out there until he actually put him self out there. Letting out a slow shaky breath Carlton braced himself and took a long determined step forward straight into the open. Nothing happened. Carlton looked around quickly and took a few more steps so that he was in the center of the room. The head detective felt like letting out a shaky laugh, instead he turned around and was about to call out to Mary, when a soft click to his right drew his attention. Snapping his head to the side Carlton felt his stomach drop.

"Hello Detective." Ashden took a menacing step out from in between two storage units. Carlton felt his jaw twitch in anger as he clenched his teeth, wishing more that anything that he had his gun on him. Ashden walked casually over to Lassiter, the head detective clenched his fists, with his hands still chained together he couldn't even take a swipe at the man standing nonchalantly in front of him. Not that he would try, not with the two lackeys from earlier standing on either side of the man.

"What did you do with my wife detective?" Ashden asked, his tone merely curious, as if he was asking a clever dog how it had gotten out of the yard.

"Less than what I should of done." Carlton spat, pulling at the cuffs around his wrists. Ashden shrugged, but kept the gun level with Carlton's face.

"And the girl?" Carlton's eyes darted over to where he had left Mary, he could just vaguely make her out in the dark shadows of the storage unit.

"We'll come back for her. I already called for help. Back up is on its way here as we speak." Carlton gave a tight lipped and sarcastic smile. "you should use this time to scurry back to the sewers like the rat that you are." The two men stared at each other for a terse moment before Ashden took a few steps backwards, his eyes narrowing slightly. He looked Carlton up and down before reaching up and tipping his hat slightly. He could tell Lassiter was lying.

"Nice try detective." Ashden raised a hand and and made a twirling motion with his finger. "Find the girl. Shes around here somewhere. And as for you, well, you're not really worth keepin round, I suppose." Ashden leveled the gun and drew back the hammer. Carlton took a step forward, he needed to distract them somehow.

"You wont get away with this. I know all about the money. You and your wife are going away for a long time." Carlton blurted. Ashed's lips peeled away from his teeth in the slowest, creepiest smile Carlton had ever seen.

"What do you know about the money. Detective." Carlton frowned.

"I know that you'll never find it now that Gubbard is dead." Lassiter responded snarkily. He had to make himself sound important enough to not kill.

"Gubbard's dead?" Ashden raised an eyebrow, still nothing more than vague curiosity on his face.

"Your wife killed him." Lassiter snapped angrily, "but he told me everything before he died." Lassiter informed the cowboy. Ashdan's eyes narrowed slightly and Lassiter recognized the look. Ashden was trying to decide whether Carlton was telling the truth or not.

"He told you where he hid the money?" Ashden sounded slightly excited. Lassiter glared.

"He told me a lot of things." Lassiter's eyes widened in sudden terror when Mary's little scream cut through the darkness behind them. Ashden turned slightly and Lassiter stared in dread as one of the lackeys from earlier walked out from behind one of the shipping containers holding Mary in front of him at an arms length.

"Let her go." Lassiter ground out, seething with anger. The men all ignored him. The lackey brought Mary to Ashdan and held her out to him. Ashdan reached out and wrapped an arm under her legs, holding her to him.

"Howdy lil Missy." Ashdan smiled his slow smile at her. Mary whined loudly,

"Nooo, stop you! Dooont!" She whined and pushed at his shoulders, lifting her arms up to try and wiggle free. Ashden's smile hardened and he gripped her tightly, pulling another whine from her, but stopping her from squirming. The roaring in his ears almost prevented Carlton from hearing what Ashden said next,

"Now I can see you care 'bout what happens to this lil girl here, detective." The smile fell from Ashden's face, and Lassiter was left to stare into the cold emotionless eyes of a killer.

"So, you tell me where the moneys hid, and I wont kill her." There was a pause that apparently lasted too long for Ashdan's liking because before Lassiter could respond, Ashdan steadied his gun and fired. Carlton let out a strangled scream as the bullet ripped through his right shoulder and sent him crashing to the ground. Panting heavily, Carlton lay on his back, his vision darkening around the edges. He turned his head and took in the sight of his mangled suit jacket. Dark red was quickly spreading over the spot where Mary had whipped her nose earlier. The second he thought of the little girl, Lassiter realized that he could hear her frantically sobbing, her indignant screeching, mixing with the ringing in his ears. Pushing himself up off the ground with a surge of adrenaline Carlton managed to sit up.

Mary was crying loudly, large tears rolling down her cheeks, her face red and her eyes screwed shut. Lassiter realized she was shouting,

"Lassie murbered! Lassie Murbered!" she hiccuped when Ashden shook her, trying to get her to quiet down, the movement only served to strengthen her resolve to wail.

"Will you shut up!" Ashdan yelled at her, his nonchalant facade cracking. Mary turned to face him, her face contorting in anger,

"NO!" She screeched rocking backwards in Ashdan's arms, than rolling forward and head-butting the cowboy in the face with violent force. Ashdan let out a loud curse as blood sprayed from his now broken nose and dropped Mary to the ground. The little girl landed on the ground in a heap and a pained yelp, the tears mixing in with the blood now on her face. Carlton blinked, reminded of when he had first found her outside of the station.

"Mary." Carlton mumbled lowly, his voice cracking. Even though he was quiet he was loud enough for the little girl to notice him. How she heard him over Ashdan's screaming and cursing was a mystery to him, but she did. The second she heard his voice she sprang to her feet and rushed over to Lassiter and barreled into him, it was all the head detective could do to keep himself upright. Lassiter wrapped his arms around the little girl and pulled her to him, shielding her from all the guns and violence surrounding her.

"D'mn 'ckn 'id!" Ashden cursed loudly, his fingers pinching his nose, blood running freely past his mouth and onto his shirt. Ashden raise his gun towards Lassiter and Mary, cocking it for the second time. Lassiter curled around Mary protectively and closed his eyes, but the bang that caused him to jump wasn't the result of a gun shot.

It was the sound of a door being broken in.

And the sounds that followed it were music to his ears. Loud shouts of, "SBPD! HANDS UP! PUT THE GUN DOWN!" Filled the room and Lassiter finally felt himself relax for the first time since he had given Mary back to her mother.

* * *

There were people surrounding them, shouting and yelling and for once, Lassiter felt no inclination to help arrest anyone at all. The head detective peeled Mary away from his chest and looked down at her. His vision was blurring slightly around the edges but he needed to make sure she was okay. She had blood on her face from the head butt and one side of her was covered in blood. Carlton winced, realizing it was his blood.

"Are you alright?" Carlton asked her, his arms falling away from her shoulders and falling limply in front of him. Mary sniffled.

"Lassie got murberd." Her bottom lip quivered, Lassiter reached up with his good hand, dragging his bad arm with him as they were still hand cuffed. He felt slightly irritated about that.

"No, I was shot. Not murdered, being murdered is when someone doesn't ever come back. Being shot is just getting hurt."

"Carlton!" Juliet was suddenly in front of him, kneeling down, worriedly scanning him for injuries. Her eyes stopped on his shoulder, which was still seeping blood.

"Oh my god are you okay?" She asked reaching out toward him. Carlton huffed indignantly.

"Fine. Will someone please do something about these though?" Carlton snapped lifting his arms up weakly. Juliet let out a little gasp and reached out for him.

"Lassie-face!" Shawn suddenly appeared behind Juliet, he was pale and panting slightly and his right arm was in a bright green sling, but he was there, smiling wide eyed and relived.

"Spencer." Lassiter grumbled, though he would never admit it, he was happy to see Shawn was well enough to be walking around. He probably wasn't supposed to be walking around, but the fact that he was capable of it made Lassiter feel slightly less worried over the idiot fake psychic. There was a soft click indicating that Lassiter's hands were now free. The first thing the detective did was reach up and grab Mary's chin gently.

"Is she okay?" Juliet asked quietly, noticing that, once again, the little girl was covered in blood.

"Are you injured anywhere?" Carlton asked Mary, turning her head to look at it. Aside from the bruise from earlier, a new bruise was forming on the child's face. Right in the middle of her forehead, where she had head-butted Ashden.

"I hurted my hand." Mary lifted up the palm of her hand and Carlton grabbed it gently, cupping the small hand in his own bigger hand. He realized she must of scrapped her hand when Ashden had dropped her.

"Don't worry, that will heal." Carlton informed her, dropping his hand away from hers. Mary glared at him, her hand still hovering near her face.

"No. Its hurts. Kiss it to made it not hurt." Mary held her hand up defiantly. Carlton rolled his eyes at her, but he gave in with very little fight and planted a little kiss in the middle of Mary's palm. Something that did not go unnoticed by either Juliet or Shawn. The two shared a look, Juliet's eyes sparkling. Carlton looked up at the two and caught their looks. Looking slightly embarrassed, but mostly just irritated the head detective cleared his throat.

"The Gubbard's are both in a room down the hall. Kristina's is still alive." Lassiter looked down at Mary who had plopped down on the ground, one hand grabbing Lassiter's shirt.

"Mr. Gubbard is not." Carlton felt himself sway slightly and frowned when he noticed little black dots swimming around his field of vision.

"You all right Lassie?" Shawn asked kneeling down.

"Just peachy Spencer. Where are those damn paramedics?" Carlton turned to look behind him and gasped when pain shot down his side, causing his shoulders to shake. Mary looked up at the noise and then over at Juliet,

"Damn Pardamedics!" She parroted. Juliet glanced disapprovingly at Lassiter and held her hands up in front of her,

"Oh don't move Carlton. I'll get them. Just sit still." She instructed him worriedly, turning on her heel to find them. Lassiter looked down at Mary, the little girl was mumbling something to herself, her words all meshing together and not make much sense to anyone but herself. The head detective felt a little stab in his heart and admitted to himself that the feeling was affection. He couldn't lie to himself, not after everything that had happened, he cared about the little girl. Looking up Lassiter realized that Shawn was still staring at him. The head detective was slightly unnerved by the clarity in that stare, how sharp and focused Shawn's eyes were. Carlton resisted the urge to look away, it wasn't often that Shawn looked at him seriously like that, heck the last time he had seen that look on the younger mans face had been moments before Shawn had declared he had solved the entire case and then had been shot. Lassiter looked back down at Mary, when Shawn looked like that if felt like the younger man really could read minds. Lassiter wondered if Shawn knew what he had been thinking about earlier.

"What are you doing here" Lassiter asked, watching as that unnerving stare broke. Shawn's face took on an aloof quality, like a child bragging about something awesome they did. Carlton couldn't help but feel slightly relived to see Spencer no longer staring at him with such intelligence and knowing.

"I was at the hospital when I remembered the case!" Shawn started to explain, flopping down so that he was sitting across from Lassiter. Shawn winced slightly, the slight tremor running through his body not going unnoticed.

"You remembered?" Lassiter commented, noticing that Mary was pulling at the buttons on his suit jacket.

"Yup. So I called Juliet to let her know that Mr. Gubbard wasn't actually the bad guy. But You'd already figured it all out by the time I called." Shawn smiled proudly at Carlton like a father would at a child. Carlton scowled.

"Of course I figured it out. You're not the only one who can solve a case, Spencer._" _Lassiter spat out the name irritably. Mary looked up at Lassiter's tone of voice. She glanced over at Shawn

"Spencer!" She copied Lassier's tone of voice and his heated glare. Shawn let out a slow puff of breath.

"Man, what have you created?" He nodded his head towards Mary, a slight smile on his lips. Suddenly a hand thudded down on Lassiter's shoulder. The head detective let out a pained groaned and glared up at the face attached to the arm.

"Detective Lassiter?" A young paramedic with curly blond hair stared down at Lassiter.

"Yes?" Lassiter snapped. Juliet appeared from around the blond man.

"Found the paramedics!" She announced triumphantly. Lassiter just sighed in response.

"Hold on." Knowing that the paramedics were probably going to wheel him away to a waiting ambulance and that Mary wouldn't be allowed he turned to the little girl. He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from his jacket.

"Uh oh..." Mary looked down at the hand that had been removed from Lassiter's coat, a small button clutched in her palm. Lassiter didn't notice it.

"Listen here little one." Mary looked up at him curiously. "I need to go to the hospital now alright?" He started. Mary nodded happily and lifted her arms, waiting to be carried.

"No. You cant come with me. See Spencer over there?" Lassiter asked nodding his head at Shawn. Mary turned around slowly, a slight pout on her lips. Shawn waved at her enthusiastically.

"Spencer." She said his name and then turned back towards Lassiter, lifting her arms in the air defiantly.

"Mary. I am not taking you with me. Spencer is going to drive you to the hospital and you are going to be good and do what he says. If you start crying and screaming then they wont let you into the hospital to see me." Lassiter informed her. There was a tense moment of silence and Lassiter could tell that Mary was deciding between doing as she was told and throwing a tantrum. Her shoulders sagged slightly and Lassiter breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good. Now go with Spencer." He instructed her. Mary sighed dramatically and stood up wobbling slightly, the second she moved, two paramedics swarmed Lassiter, pulling at his coat, and checking various things. Lassiter ignored them, too focused on what Mary was doing.

"Spencer." Lassiter called out as soon as Mary reached the pseudo psychics side, her small hand clutching his pant leg. Shawn looked up at the call of his name.

"Yeah?" He asked absentmindedly, distracted by Mary pulling on his pant leg.

"Get her checked by a paramedic. She might have a concussion." Lassiter pushed away hands holding a neck brace, grumpily snapping that he, 'didn't need one of those damn things.'

"Don't worry Lassie. I have everything under control." Shawn reassured placing a hand on the top of Mary's head. The little girl looked up at him but didn't do anything, instead she turned to Lassiter, looking at his face as if asking if she was okay. Lassiter just nodded at her reassuringly. The last thing he saw before they lifted him off the ground and carried him away on a stretcher was Mary reaching up and offering something up to Shawn. The pseudo psychic reached down and grabbed the item proffered to him. Lassiter squinted at it. It was a button. Rounding the corner, Mary falling out of his sight, Lassiter looked down at his coat and noticed that one of his buttons had been ripped off. Carlton sighed. He had really liked this coat too.

* * *

Shawn looked down at the button sitting in the palm of his hand, wondering if this was a peace offering of some sort. He pursed his lips. That Mary had given him anything at all must mean something. The pseudo psychic made a little humming noise and tested out the peace theory by offering Mary his hand.

"Should we go find a paramedic?" He asked her. She looked up at him and took his hand in hers.

"No. See Lassie." She declared. Shawn shrugged at her.

"We can't see Lassie until you get checked! Or do you want Lassie to be mad at us?" Shawn asked her, sounding sad.

"Mad?" Mary asked looking up at him with worry in her big blue eyes. Shawn nodded solemnly.

"He did say to get checked, but you don't want to?" Shawn sighed and slumped his shoulders as if presented with a great delemia.

"NO!" Mary tugged at his arm. "I want a go get checks." She breathed out quickly.

"Well. Okay. Only if you want to." Shawn smiled and pocket the button, dragging Mary off towards the paramedics. He walked quickly past Mr. and Mrs. Ashden, noticing when Mary scooted closer to him fearfully, mumbling something unintelligible under her breath. They made it to the paramedics without incident and after a quick check up that deemed the little girl okay, if not a little bruised and shaken Shawn was left to find Gus. After a quick search Shawn found his friend huddled over a dirty garbage can, vomiting shakily.

"Gusy poo!" Shawn exclaimed excitedly walking over and patting his friend roughly on the back. Gus just groaned in response. Mary watched the two wearily.

"Is's he sick?" She asked pointing at Gus's hunched over form. At the sound of the little girls voice Gus started and turned around quickly.

"Shawn. Why do you have Mary?" He asked eying her just as wearily as she was eying him.

"Lassie had to go to the hospital." Shawn explained.

"And he gave Mary to _you?" _Gus asked incredulously. Shawn scoffed at him

"Of course he did. He trusts me like that." Shawn smiled brightly. "Why are you vomiting anyway?" The pseudo psychic asked, there hadn't been any bodies when he had walked into the room after the SBPD had cleared the area. Gus swallowed thickly, his face turning ashen, he looked over at something to his right. Turning slightly Shawn noticed a body bag being zipped up by the corner.

"Ah. Was it..." He paused and nodded down towards Mary. Gus nodded solemnly. Shawn sighed, wondering what was going to happen to Mary now that her mother had turned out to be a psychopath and her father was dead.

"Want some ice cream?" Shawn suddenly asked looking down at Mary. Gus's face lit up at the same time as Mary, both of them trading suspicious glares for excited looks. Shawn tugged on Mary's hand gently, leading her towards the blueberry.

"Gus is paying!" Shawn exclaimed, rushing to the car before his friend could protest.

* * *

**There you go. Some Shawn in this Lassie centered fic. I've been writing for Lassie and Mary for so long though. I'mm in THEIR character, I dont know how shawn would act with Mary. Shes only being compliant for him though because Lassie asked her to by the way. **


	15. Epilogue

Lassiter woke up with a pounding head ache. He had been shot before, so he instantly recognized the sterile hospital room and the feeling of waking up after a long and painful surgery. What he had not been expecting to feel was the worry that suddenly crashed into him. Worry for a certain blue eyed little girl. Pushing himself up off the bed with a great amount of difficulty, thanks to the dark blue sling holding his right arm in place, Lassiter looked around the room. It was empty. He frowned, he had at least expected O'Hara to hang around until he woke up. Lassiter looked up at the wall to check the time. The clock read Twelve, exactly, but with the curtains drawn down Carlton couldn't tell if it was morning or night.

"Damn." Carlton grumbled to himself, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His shoulder ached painfully but Carlton ignored it in favor of finding some information out. A quiet click drew the head detectives attention to the far side of the room, where Juliet was just exiting the bathroom. Carlton's face lit up in a rare smile as Mary stumbled out from behind his partner. The little girl was babbling excitedly about something and Juliet nodding her head, adding little,

"Oh? Really's?" Whenever Mary said something particularly interesting. The two girls turned and noticed Carlton at the same time. Juliet smile was accompanied by a relieved breath of air.

"You re awake!" Her exclamation was drowned out by Mary's loud sequel of laughter. The little girl hopped up and down a few times, clapping her hands together and rushed over to Lassiter's bed.

"Lassies! You're awake!" She copied O'Hara exclamation and clawed at Carlton's legs, demanding to be picked up. Juliet walked over to the two quickly and lifted Mary onto the bed so that she was sitting right next to Carlton.

"Mary was very good while you were sleeping. Isn't that right?" Juliet asked the little girl. Mary nodded excitedly, her curls bouncing. She placed her hand over her mouth and made a shushing noise.

"We had to of been quiet so Lassie can sleep." She explained another excited peel of laughter escaping her. Lassiter watched her fondly and then remembered that he had left her with Shawn,

"What happened to Spencer?" Lassiter asked, wondering what had happened to the pseudo psychic once he had been wheeled away from the crime scene. Juliet made a disapproving humming noise.

"He took Mary to get ice cream." Juliet placed her hands on her hips.

"And?" Carlton asked, noticing the unhappy little frown tugging at the corner of Juliet's lips.

"Carlton." She started, her voice belaying exactly how exasperated she was. "She was covered head to toe in blood!" Juliet explained. Lassiter's eyes widened slightly, he had forgotten about that and now that he looked he could see that Mary was in a completely different outfit. She was wearing a purple shirt with a heart in the middle of it, dark purple jeans and plain white sneakers.

"I got checked and got ice cream with Spencer_" _Mary began, her words mixing together excitedly. Carlton nodded in response whenever he could reacting to the little girls happy babbling as best he could. Juliet watched the two, a small smile on her face. When Mary finally fell silent Juliet cleared her throat. Carlton looked up at her.

"I should warn you." She started, looking uncomfortable. Carlton pulled a face, watching Juliet apprehensively.

"About what O'Hara."

"After we found you. The chief, she uh, called the only family Mary has left." Juliet explained, watching as Lassiter's face turned icy.

"Did you do background check? Have you met them? Are you sure you can trust them?" He placed his hand on Mary's back protectively. "O'Hara. We cant just give Mary away again. Not with out knowing if its safe this time." Lassiter felt himself glaring angrily at his partner, he couldn't help it though, the last time he had given Mary up to someone who was supposed to care for her and take care of her it had not gone well.

"We checked into them. They are coming down to the station to pick up Mary today." Juliet explained.

"Who are they?" Carlton asked quietly looking down at Mary. The little girl was kicking her legs and humming quietly to herself, playing with a button that Carlton recognized as his own. She must of taken it back from Spencer, he mused to himself, tearing his gaze away from the small child.

"Her grandparents. Margret and Jim Gubbard. They've been married fifty three years. Their son was their only child, Mary's their only grandchild, both retired. They seem like nice people Carlton." Juliet reassured him. Carlton scowled at her.

"I'll be the judge of that." He snapped turning his attention back to Mary. Juliet watched the pair quietly.

* * *

The woman, Margret was sixty five. She was heavy set, warm and kind looking, She had short gray curled hair, small little glasses and the quietest voice Lassiter had ever struggled to hear. Her husband, Jim, was a tall man, also heavy set with thick rimmed black glasses that made his eyes bug out comically. He wore his pants too high and kept them up with suspenders and pulled at the thinning beard on his chin when ever he talked.

Lassiter didn't trust them. They were too nice looking.

"That them?" Shawn asked. Shawn, Henry, Lassiter, the chief, Gus and Juliet all stood inside the chiefs office, the pseudo psychic and his friend peering out through the blinds curiously.

"don't look through the blind's boys." Karen reprimanded off offhandedly, used to her own daughter bending blinds out of shape doing the exact same thing Shawn and Gus were doing. Both men pulled away from the window and looked over at Lassiter who was clutching Mary's hand gently.

"I don't trust them." Lassiter grumbled subconsciously pulling Mary closer to himself.

"Why? They look nice enough." Juliet observed, peeking out from the open door.

"They look pure evil." Lassiter groused.

"They do not." Henry put in standing next to Juliet and watching as the older couple chatted idly with McNab. The rookie officer was filling out their paper work.

"they're coming!" Shawn announced, pulling away from the window blinds he had been peering through, despite the chiefs demand he stay away from them. The office fell silent as they group watched the two elders approach, Buzz leading the way. They entered the office, hesitating slightly at the amount of people waiting for them in the small room. Lassiter scowled, he supposed they were a strange sight to behold. Carlton glanced at Shawn, his right arm in a sling, just like Carlton's, bruises covering Mary's face and a fierce protective aura radiating from everyone, especially himself, in the room. The tense atmosphere broke when Mary let out a small sequel similar to the one she had made when she had first seen Carlton wake up at the hospital. Pulling away from the head detective she ran over to her grandparents, pure delight on her face.

"Oma! Oppa!" She barreled into her grandmothers out stretched arms giggling and talking animatedly. Carlton felt his shoulders slump, Mary's reaction was enough for him to give into the fact that he had to give the girl up to these two people. Jim smiled warmly at his granddaughter and then looked up at Carlton.

"Are you the one that's been taking care of my granddaughter?" He asked shuffling over to where Carlton was standing. The head detective forced his face into a neutral stare, trying to keep his usual glare off of it.

"Yes." He responded curtly. Margret looked up at him, Mary's hand now firmly in her grip.

"that nice tall man out there told us the whole story." She mumbled quietly, refeuring to McNab. Lassiter looked from her down to Mary.

"We just wanted to thank you for all you did. Looks like a few of you got pretty banged up helping Brooke." Jim observed, pulling at his beard thoughtfully. It took Lassiter a moment to remember that Mary's real name was Brooke before he responded.

"We were just doing our job." He explained neutrally. Jim held out his hand, and Carlton shook it gently, wincing as the movement pulled at his ribs and the bruising around his wrists.

"Well, thank you anyway." Jim responded polity, turning to walk back towards his wife. Carlton could feel everyone's eyes on him and rolled his shoulders, wishing they would stop looking at him. Margret cleared her throat,

"Say good bye to the nice detectives sweetie" Margret said once her husband was at her side. Mary looked up at her grandma, her eyes wide.

"good bye?" She asked, confused. Margret nodded, waiting patiently. The little girl looked between her grandma and Lassiter a few times before staring up and Lassiter,

"Good bye." her voice shook a little, and she stared with eyes wide and watery. Lassiter sighed and rolled his eyes. Crouching down so that he was on one knee he held out his arm for his little girl, ignoring the stabbing pain the motion caused his shoulder and ribs.

"Oh for heavens sake, come here." He groused. Mary smiled giddily and pulled away from her grandma, running to Carlton she crashed into his chest. Carlton let out a pained grunt and wrapped his arm around Mary's shoulders, his face burning red with embarrassment as he hugged her tightly. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him messily on the cheek, making a little popping noise with her mouth. Carlton swallowed thickly and looked at her face as she was pulling away from him.

"Now you listen up." He started, his voice thick with emotion. He could see Juliet with her hand over her heart, he didn't need to see her face to imagine the look of , _aww that's so cute_, that she was no doubt sending his way. Nor did he need to look at Shawn or Gus to know they were smirking happily at his obvious embarrassment.

"You need to be good for you're grandparents. Understand. I'll be checking in and they'll tell me if you pull anything funny. Understand?" Carlton asked her, sounding like he was addressing a criminal getting out on parole. Mary nodded enthusiastically and saluted the head detective messily. Though Carlton doubted she was really paying attention to him. Standing up with some minor difficulty Carlton nodded, satisfied.

"All right then. I'll see you later kid." Carlton cleared his throat again, his face still red. If any one called him out on being embarrassed though, he would just attribute his discomfort to the pain. Mary rushed away from Carlton and re captured her grandmothers hand in her own. Mary began to babble excitedly, and Carlton was struck by how different the loud, energetic toddler was compared to the first time he had seen her. He watched them leave silently, until he felt a soft hand on his uninjurjerd shoulder. Looking over he noticed Juliet was also watching the reunited family.

"you okay?" She asked looking at him. Carlton shrugged.

"Why wouldn't I be O'Hara?" He grumbled

"Hey Lassie!" Shawn suddenly let out a surprised gasp and Lassiter turned towards the fake psychic, one eye brow raised in question.

"Check it out. Were twinsies!" Shawn exclaimed pointing to his sling and rushing over to Lassiter's side. Lassiter rolled his eyes and started out of the office.

"No we're not, you were shot in the back. Not the shoulder." Lassiter pointed out. Shawn scoffed at him.

"Lassa frass! You're forgetting about the time I was kidnapped!" Shawn rebuked happily, smacking Lassiter on the back, before heading out the door, Gus trailing after him, reminding him for being so rough with their wounded head detective. To which Shawn responded that he was equally as wounded so he was allowed. Juliet walked towards the door as well, turning to fix Lassiter with a concerned glance. He shrugged it off, following after her, glancing back at the chief. His boss nodded at him, but otherwise didn't say anything. Meeting up with Shawn, Gus and Juliet out by his desk he watched the three chat excitedly.

"Whose up for some jerk chicken?" Gus suddenly spoke up. Everyone paused and glanced over at Lassiter, as if it was up to him. The detective glared at them all and then rolled his eyes, not looking at any of them. The action caused matching smiles to break out on everyone's face.

"Perfect! Last one there has to pay!" Shawn exclaimed excitedly, jogging away from the group as best as he could while wounded. Gus followed quickly, and Juliet trailed after the two boys. Carlton let a small smile touch his lips and followed after the loud group, content that everything was going to be fine.

* * *

Jim and Margret both sat quietly in their living room, jeopardy playing on the TV, Brooke coloring happily in a coloring book on the ground. It had been three months since they had taken in the little girl, and despite the fact that she still had nightmares, she was getting better. A sudden loud knock at the door had the two elderly couple glancing at each other in confusion.

"Are you expecting anyone?" Jim asked his wife. She shook her head, staring at the door in curiosity. Jim pushed up from his recliner with a grunt, his knees popping at the effort and ambled over to the door. Looking through the peep hole he frowned when he noticed that no one was there. He turned to glance at his wife.

"Who is it?" she asked also frowning slightly.

"No one..." Jim grunted, reaching for the door knob and pulling the door open slowly. He glanced outside suspiciously, one bushy eyebrow raised and glanced down. A large box sat on the welcome mat. Addressed to Mary Brooke Gubbard of Salem Oregon. Dragging the package inside and pulling it into the kitchen, Jim lifted it up and set it down on the kitchen table with a loud thunk. Margret, suddenly at his side, handed him a dull knife and he set to cutting the thick tape off the top of the mysterious box. Once it was open Jim and Margret frowned at each other. Inside, sitting on top of a dirty looking duffel bag was pineapple.

And inside the dirty duffel bag was five hundred thousand dollars.

* * *

**I don't even know, this last paragraph thing wasn't written when I found this story. I just had to finish it before posting this. I haven't watched psych since the new season came out, and I don't even remember the main plot of this story. SO sorry if the ending was a bit weak. All I remember was that I was going to have Mary leave with her grandparents. **

**Oh and Oma and Oppa mean grandma and grandpa by the way. My cousin called our grandparents that all the time for some reason. **

**Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to read this, I hope you review, but more importantly I hope you enjoyed the story. Thinking back to when I first wrote it I realized that I had no idea what I was doing plot wise. But that's okay, just don't think about it too hard. That's what I do. Haha. **


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